Introduction

This is a collection of jokes and other humorous stories I have written
or collected off the Net over the past few years. Most relate to
engineering or science but some on other topics were just too good
to pass up.

These should be mostly suitable for general audiences (unless you have a
lawyer in the family. :-) They are in no particular order. I just add new
ones to the end of the file (most of the time) and bump the version number
(when I remember).

In most cases, the actual authors are unknown but I have at least provided
attribution to the person who posted or emailed the article where available.
Where there is no explicit attribution, I am the author and it therefore
falls under the Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ copyright.

DISCLAIMER

While every effort has been made - really! - to keep this collection of
hopefully humorous articles pretty clean and unlikely to offend most people,
there is always a chance something slipped through. My apologies in advance
for any offense that might be taken. In the several years that most of this
collection has been available, I have only received one (1, 0000001, I)
complaint which I offered to remedy but never heard back so it can't be all
that unsavory!

Having said that, I will not be responsible for any direct or consequential
damage that may result from the reading of this collection including but not
limited to: complaints from neighbors over excessive noise, costs associated
with hernia operations resulting from prolonged and intense belly-laughs,
destruction of property caused when the dog, cat, spouse, or other relation
was thrown across the room from the couch and landed in the entertainment
center, or the time and expense of finding another place of employment having
been fired from your former one due to continuous Web page reading and
inattention to the duties associated with your official job description.

As you can tell, lawyers had nothing whatsoever to do with the wording of this
disclaimer. :-)

Carnot is dead ! Schaeffer disproves 2nd Law

The First Law of Thermodynamics:
"You can't get something for nothing"

The Second Law of Thermodynamics:
"As a matter of fact, you can't even break even."

Newton's first Law of Motion:
"If you kick a can, it will move."

Newton's Second Law of Motion:
"If you kick it harder, it will move faster."

Perhaps others know of similar restatements of other important Laws?

The best summary of the first and second laws of thermodynamics I have
seen (in 3 statments):

You can't win.

You can't break even.

You can't quit the game.

But surely simple things grow more complex as the cosmos implodes
in retrograde time toward the initial collapse of the singularity? Er, or
is it that complex things break down to constituent particles as the cosmos
eXplodes along linear time lines towards chaos (i.e., entropy). Wait. Where
is my local closed system where heat/energy/complexity can make a muddle of
the metaverse's puddle? Oh --i know, I will just sink into the quandary of the
19th century, where the only part of probability that was important was babil
(babbel) and ...oh, dear, where IS lewis carrol when he's needed?: The

Canonical Collection of Light Bulb Jokes

(Mostly from: Clay Belcher (cbelcher@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu).)

Time for a little levity, lighting fans. Or should I say a little light
humor. This collection of jokes was originally attributed to: Kurt Guntheroth
(kurt@tc.fluke.COM).)but I've been unable to raise him at that address. I've
taken the liberty to post this here in a somewhat sterilized version (as the
original contained some pretty offensive stuff). Enjoy, and feel free to
contribute additional ones.

Q: How many Californians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Six. One to turn the bulb, one for support, and four to
relate to the experience.

Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Five. One to change the bulb and four more to chase off
the Californians who have come up to relate to the experience.
A': Nine. One to change the bulb, and eight to protest the
nuclear power plant that generates the electricity that powers it.

Q: How many New Yorkers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None of your business!
A': 50. 50? Yeah 50; its in the contract.

Q: How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Twelve: one to replace it and eleven to talk about how much
better the old one was.

Q: How many yuppies does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to call the electrician and one to mix the martinis.

Q: How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but the bulb has got to really WANT to change.
A': None; the bulb will change itself when it is ready.

Q: How many software people does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. That's a hardware problem.
A': One, but if he changes it, the whole building will probably fall down.
A": Two. One always leaves in the middle of the project.

Q: How many hardware folks does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. That's a software problem.
A': None. They just have marketing portray the dead bulb as a feature.

Q: How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb?
A: As many as you want; they're all virtual, anyway.

Q: How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment of
license fee (binary only).
A': Nearly unanswerable, since the one who tries to change it usually drops
it, and the others call for a planning session.
A": Three. One to get the bulb and two to get the phone number of one of
their subordinates to actually change it.

Q: How many graduate students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only one, but it may take upwards of five years for him to get it done.

Q: How many `Real Men' does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None: `Real Men' aren't afraid of the dark.

Q: How many `Real Women' does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None: A 'Real Woman' would have plenty of real men around to do it.

Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None: The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.

Q: How many Russian leaders does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Nobody knows. Russian leaders don't last as long as light bulbs.

Q: How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Seven. One to install the new bulb and six to figure out what to do with
the old one for the next 10,000 years.

Q: How many pre-med students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Five: One to change the bulb and four to pull the ladder out from under
him.

Q: How many jugglers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One, but it takes at least three light bulbs.

Q: How many Feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's not funny!!!

Q: How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself.

Q: How many economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to assume the ladder and one to change the bulb.
A': None. If the government would just leave it alone, it would screw itself
in.

Q: How many Valley Girls does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Oooh, like, manual labor? Gag me with a spoon! For sure.

Q: How many data base people does it take to change alight bulb?
A: Three:
One to write the light bulb removal program,
one to write the light bulb insertion program, and
one to act as a light bulb administrator to make sure
nobody else tries to change the light bulb at the same time.

Q: How many Carl Sagans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Billions and billions.

Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: A tree in a golden forest.
A': Two: one to change the bulb and one not to change it.
A": One to change and one not to change is fake Zen. The true Zen answer is
Four. One to change the bulb.
A'":None. Zen masters carry their own light.

Q: How many folk singers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to change the bulb, and one to write a song about how good the
old light bulb was.

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with
brightly colored machine tools.

Q: How many gorillas does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only one, but it takes a truckload of light bulbs!

Q: How many doctors does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Three. One to find a bulb specialist, one to find a bulb installation
specialist, and one to bill it all to Medicare.

Q: How many [IBM] Technical Writers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001,
Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the
pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the
definitions are of the form "A:...... consists of sequences of non-blank
characters separated by blanks".
A': Just one, provided there's an engineer around to explain how to do it.

Q: How many professors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but they get three publications out of it.

Q: How many people from New Jersey does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Three. One to change the light bulb, one to be a witness, and the third
to shoot the witness.

Q: How many cops does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. It turned itself in.

Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: How many can you afford?

Q: How many football players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The entire team! And they all get a semester's credit for it!

Q: How many thought police does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. There never was any light bulb.

Q: How many Federal employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Sorry, that item has been cut from the budget!

Q: How many psychics does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: ---- You should have hit "n"!

Q: How many sorority sisters does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 51. One to change the bulb, and fifty to sing about the bulb
being changed.

Q: How many frat guys does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Three: One to screw it in, and the other two to help him
down off the keg.
A': Five: One to hold the bulb, and four to guzzle beer until the room spins.

Q: How many Harvard students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Just one. He grabs the bulb and waits for the world to revolve around him.

Q: How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to assure the everything possible is being done while the other
is incomplete pending resolution of some action items. It will be
continued next week. Meanwhile...

Q: How many brewers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: About one third less than for a regular bulb.

Q: How many WASP Princesses does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to get a Tab and one to call Daddy.

Q: How many accountants does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: What kind of answer did you have in mind?

Q: How many civil servants does it take to change the light bulb?
A: 45. One to change the bulb, and 44 to do the paperwork.

Q: How many junkies does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Oh wow, is it like dark, man?

Q: How many consultants does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I will have an estimate for you a week from Monday.

Q: How many U.S marines does it take to screw in a light bulb
A: 50. One to screw in the light bulb and the remaining 49 to guard him.

Q: "How many Romulans does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
A: "151, one to screw the light-bulb in, and 150 to self-destruct the ship
out of disgrace."

Q: How many dull people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: one.

Q: How many editors of Poor Richard's Almanac does it take to replace a light
bulb?
A: Many hands make light work.

Q: How many Vulcans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: "Approximately 1.00000000000000000000000"

Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: 7. Scotty will report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in the
Engineering Section is burnt out, to which Kirk will send Bones to
pronounce the bulb dead. Scotty, after checking around, notices that they
have no more new light bulbs, and complains that he can't see in the dark
to tend to his engines. Kirk must make an emergency stop at the next
uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb from the
natives. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, and 3 red shirt security officers beam
down. The 3 security officers are promptly killed by the natives, and the
rest of the landing party is captured. Meanwhile, back in orbit, Scotty
notices a Klingon ship approaching and must warp out of orbit to escape
detection. Bones cures the native king who is suffering from the flu, and
as a reward the landing party is set free and given all of the light bulbs
they can carry. Scotty cripples the Klingon ship and warps back to the
planet just in time to beam up Kirk et. al. The new bulb is inserted, and
the Enterprise continues with its five year mission.

Q: How many efficiency experts does it take to replace a light bulb?
A: None. Efficiency experts replace only dark bulbs.

Q: How many actors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one. They don't like to share the spotlight.

Q: How many Chinese Red Guards does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 10,000 - to give the bulb a cultural revolution.

Q: Do you know how many musicians it takes to change a light bulb?
A: No, big daddy, but hum a few bars and I will fake it.
A': Twenty. One to hold the bulb, two to turn the ladder, and seventeen in on
the guest list.

Q: How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two, one to screw it almost all the way in and the other to give it a
surprising twist at the end.

Q: How many bikers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It takes two. One to change the bulb, and the other to kick the switch.

Q: How many running-dog lackeys of the bourgeoisie does it take to change a
light bulb?
A: Two. One to exploit the proletariat, and one to control the means of
production!

Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two: One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb itself
symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a
netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of
nothingness.

Q: How many light bulbs does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One, if it knows its own Goedel number.

Q: How many dadaists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: To get to the other side.

Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. It's left to the reader as an exercise.
A': One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem to an
earlier joke.
A": One. He gives it to five Oregonians, thereby reducing the
problem to an earlier joke.
A'": In an earlier article, zeus!bobr writes:

Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem to an
earlier joke...

In earlier work, Wiener [1] has shown that one mathematician can change a
light bulb. If k mathematicians can change a light bulb, and if one more
simply watches them do it, then k+1 mathematicians will have changed the light
bulb. Therefore, by induction, for all n in the positive integers, n
mathematicians can change a light bulb.
Bibliography:
[1] Weiner, Matthew P., <11485@ucbvax>, "Re: YALBJ", 1986

Q: How many consultants does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We don't know. They never get past the feasibility study.

Q: How many Ukrainians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: They don't need to, they glow in the dark.

Q: How many poets does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Three. One to curse the darkness, one to light a candle...
... and one to change the bulb.

Q: How many stock brokers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to take out the bulb and drop it, and the other to try and sell
it before it crashes (knowing that it's already burned out).

Q: How many aides does it take to change the President's light bulb?
A: None, they like to keep him in the dark.

Q: How many magicians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Depends on what you want to change it into.

Q: How many Macintosh users does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. You have to replace the whole motherboard.

And a couple more:

(From: Don Klipstein (don@misty.com).)

Q: How many straight male West Hollywood residents does it take to change a
light bulb?

A: Either of them could probably do it themselves.

Q: How many journalists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Three. One to report on the inspired program to bring light, one to
report on the sinister government plot to deprive the poor of darkness,
and one to report on the light bulb manufacturer assassinating the old
light bulb.

(From: WB or CM Hilbrich (hilbrich@antares.cloudnet.com).)

Q: How many mailing list (or USENET!) subscribers does it take to change a
light bulb?

A: 1,331:

- 1 to change the light bulb and to post to the list that the light bulb
has been changed.

- 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light
bulb could have been changed differently.

- 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

- 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light
bulbs.

- 53 to flame the spell checkers.

- 156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb
discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list.

- 41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.

- 109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take
this e-mail exchange to alt.lite.bulb.

- 203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and
alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped.

- 111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs
and therefore the posts ARE relevant to this mail list.

- 306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to
buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this
technique, and what brands are faulty.

- 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

- 14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected
URLs.

- 3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this
list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list.

- 33 to summarize all posts to date, then quote them including all headers
and footers, and then add "Me Too."

- 12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot
handle the light bulb controversy.

- 19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three".

- 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.

- 1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup.

- 47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for, leave
it here.

- 143 votes for alt.lite.bulb.

(From: Dan Hicks (danhicks@millcomm.com).)

You forgot:

- 37 empty posts.

- 250 debating the merits of magnetic light bulb filters.

- 3 giving you URLs for really sexy adult light bulbs.

(From: Steve Dooley steve.dooley@stevedooleyassociates.com).)

I don't see the most famous one there - maybe because it is a U.S.A. site
and you don't have two standards for light bulb fittings??

Q: How many Standards Committee members to change a light bulb?
A: Bayonet or Edison Screw?

(From: Gretchen Patti (gpatti@tezzaron.com).)

Q: How many procrastinators does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: One - but he has to wait until the light is better.

Q: How many telemarketers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. But he has to do it while you're eating dinner.

Q: How many professors does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only one, but he gets three research papers out of it.

Q: How many meetings does it take to get a light bulb changed?
A: This topic was resumed from last week's discussion, but is
incomplete pending resolution of some action items. It will be
continued next week. Meanwhile...

Q: How many college students does it take to change a light-years?
A: I dunno, I forgot my calculator at home.

Q: How many first year civil engineering students does it take to
change a light bulb ?
A: None. That's a second year subject.

Q: How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Eleven. One to do it and ten to co-author the paper.

Q: How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, astronomers prefer the dark.

Q: How many radio astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are not interested in that short wave stuff.

Q: How many general relativists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One holds the bulb, while the other rotates the universe.

Q: How many body builders does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb, and two to stand nearby saying,
"YOU'RE HUGE, MAN, YOU'RE HUGE!"

Q: How many Liberals does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That depends. Can we do it without offending anyone?

Q: How many Conservatives does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That depends. How many people can we offend?

Q: How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: (Sigh) Don't bother. I'll sit in the dark! I don't want to be a nuisance
to anybody

Q: How many teachers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Well, teachers don't change light bulbs, but they can help to make a dim
one brighter.

Q: How many car salesmen does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I'm just going to work this out on my calculator and I know you will be
pleasantly surprised.

Q: How many chiropractors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One, but it takes at least 8 adjustments.

Q. How many Borg does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. One, but the whole collective enjoys the experience.

Q: How many Klingons does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Klingons aren't afraid of the dark!

Q: How many homeschoolers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: First mom checks three books on electricity out of the library, then the
kids make models of light bulbs, read a biography of Thomas Edison,
and do a skit based on his life. Next, everyone studies the history of
lighting methods, wrapping up with dipping their own candles. Then
everyone takes a trip to the store, compares types of light bulbs and
their prices, and figures out how much change they'll get if they buy
two bulbs for $1.99 and pay with a five dollar bill. On the way home,
a discussion develops over the history of money (and also Abraham
Lincoln, because his picture is on the five dollar bill). Finally,
after building a homemade ladder out of branches dragged from the
woods, the new light bulb is installed. And there is light!

Q: How many stressed-out women does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. ONE!! And do you know WHY it only takes ONE? Because no one
else in this house knows HOW to change a light bulb. They don't even
know the bulb is BURNED OUT. They would sit in this house in the dark
for THREE DAYS before they figured it out. And once they figured it
out, they wouldn't be able to find the light bulbs, despite the fact
that they've been in the SAME CUPBOARD for the past SEVENTEEN YEARS.

But if they did, by some miracle, actually find the light bulbs, TWO
DAYS LATER the chair that they dragged from two rooms over to stand on
to change the stupid light bulb would STILL BE IN THE SAME SPOT!! AND
UNDERNEATH IT WOULD BE THE CRUMPLED WRAPPER THE STUPID @*!#$% LIGHT
BULBS CAME IN! WHY?! BECAUSE NO ONE IN THIS HOUSE EVER CARRIES OUT
THE GARBAGE!!

IT'S A WONDER WE HAVEN'T ALL SUFFOCATED FROM THE PILES OF GARBAGE THAT
ARE 12 FEET DEEP THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE. THE HOUSE!! IT WOULD
TAKE AN ARMY TO CLEAN THIS... I'm sorry... What did you ask me?

Technical Light Bulbs:

Q: How many Windows programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 472. One to write WinGetLightBulbHandle, one to write
WinQueryStatusLightBulb, one to write WinGetLightSwitchHandle...

Q: How many Tech Support folks does it take to change a light bulb?

A: We have received your request concerning your hardware problem, and
has assigned your request Ticket Number 39712. Please use this
number for any future reference to this light bulb issue. As soon as a
technician becomes available, you will be contacted.

A': We have an exact copy of the light bulb here, and it seems to be
working fine. Can you tell me what kind of system you have? OK. Now,
exactly how dark is it? OK, there could be four or five things wrong...
Have you tried the light switch?

Q: How many Microsoft technicians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Three: two holding the ladder and one to hammer the bulb into a faucet.

Q: How many Microsoft vice presidents does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Eight: one to work the bulb and seven to make sure Microsoft gets $2 for
every light bulb ever changed anywhere in the world.

Q: How many test engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We just noticed the room was dark; we don't actually fix the problems.

Q: How many MicroSoft Help Desk people dies it take to change a light bulb?
A: Four:
- One to ask "What is the registration number of the light bulb?"
- One to ask "Have you tried rebooting it?"
- One to ask "Have you tried reinstalling it?"
- And the last one to say "It must be your hardware because the light
bulb in our office works fine..."

Q: How many Microsoft designers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We can see no need for uninstallation and have therefore made no provision
for light bulbs to be removed.

Q: How many C++ programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: You're still thinking procedurally. A properly designed light bulb object
would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb class, so all you'd
have to do is send a light bulb change message.

Q: How many shipping dept. personnel does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We can change the bulb in 7-10 working days; if you call before 2 pm and
pay an extra $15 we can get the bulb changed overnight. Don't forget to
put your name in the upper right hand corner of the light bulb box.

Q: How long does it take a DEC repairman to change a light bulb?
A: It depends on how many burnt-out lightbulbs he brought with him.

Q: How many Windows users does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One, but she/he'll swear up and down that it was JUST as easy for him
as it would be for a Macintosh user.

Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, Bill Gates will just redefine Darkness(tm) as the new industry
standard.

Q: How many AI researchers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One to develop a knowledge representation scheme, one to model the domain,
one to create a theoretical taxonomy, and one to write a paper on future
research directions. Of course, the bulb won't actually get changed ....

A few musical light bulb jokes:

Q: How many guitarists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to change the bulb and the other to say "I can do it better
than that!"

Q: How many alto sax players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Five: One to handle the bulb, and four to contemplate how David Sanborn
would've done it.

Q: How many oboists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. But by the time he gets done shaving the tip, you won't need it.

Star Trek Light Bulb Jokes:

If you're a Star Trek fan, look at these amazingly well-written parodies
based on the "Light Bulb" theme:

Cocker Spaniel: Why change it? I can still pee on the carpet in
the dark.

Pointer: I see it! There's the light bulb! There it is! There!
Right there!

Australian Shepherd: First, gather all the light bulbs in a little
circle...

Dalmatian: Light bulb? That thing I just ate was a light bulb?

Church Worker Light Bulbs:

Q: How many church music directors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one. It's not in his job description, but if you let him create
his own new arrangement for it, he'll do it.

Q: How many guitar-playing worship leaders does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. But soon all those around can warm up to its glowing.

Q: How many Sunday School teachers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Four. One to work the relevant Bible verses into a word search puzzle,
another to create a little drama about light bulbs, a third to
assemble materials for the craft project, and a fourth to supervise
the children as they each, in turn, remove and replace the bulb.

Q: How many youth ministers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Youth ministers aren't around long enough for a light bulb to burn out.

Church Denomination Light Bulbs:

Q: How many Roman Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They always use candles.

Q: How many Unitarians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: This statement was issued: "We choose not to make a statement either in
favour or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your
journey you have found that a light bulb works for you, that is fine.
You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your
personal relationship with your light bulb (or light source, or non
dark resource) and present it next month at our annual light bulb
Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb
traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long life,
and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths of luminescence.

Q: How many Amish does it take to change a light bulb?
A: What's a "light bulb?"

Q: How many Charismatics does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one. Hands are already in the air.

Q: How many Pentecostals does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Ten. One to change the light bulb, and nine to pray against the spirit
of darkness.

Q: How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. God has predestined when the lights will be on and off.

Q: How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Eight. One to call the electrician, and seven to say how much better
they liked the old bulb.

Q: How many Mormons does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Five. One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.

Q: How many Methodists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: A whole congregation. One to change the light bulb, and the rest of the
congregation to be sure that he doesn't backslide.

Q: How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: At least fifteen. One to change the light bulb, five or six professors to
search the Bible for authorization and then two or three committees to
approve the change. Oh, and some faithful women to make a casserole.

Q: How many Missouri Synod Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: ...change?

Q: How many Promise Keepers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Ten. Just one to change the lightbulb, but he is accountable to the other
nine.

Q: How many Jehovah's Witnesses does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 144,000. Just one to change the bulb but the rest will canvas the
community to try and convince everyone they are the only certified light
bulb changers.

Q: How many Scientology does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Light bulb? Who told you about our light bulb? Where did you get that
information? We'll see you in court.

Q: How many Christian Scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: While the light bulb may give off light to the unenlightened in this
world, for those who have been visited by the divine wisdom, no light
bulb is really necessary.

PENTIUM PROCESSOR

"Here's some of the hardware humor I've had mailed to me since the
Intel Pentium floating point divide bug came out that's been such big news
lately. It's not every day that we hardware designers get national
recognition for *anything* either positive or negative! (Thought I'd
post it as a refreshing diversion from the 100,000 serious hardware design
oriented posts we see here all year through.)"

The Top Ten Reasons to Buy a Pentium Machine

9. Want to get into the Guinness Book as "owner of the most expensive
paperweight".

8. Math errors add zest to life.

7. You need an alibi for the IRS.

6. You want to see what all the fuss is about.

5. You've always wondered what it would be like to be a plaintiff.

4. The "Intel Inside" logo matches your decor perfectly.

3. You no longer have to worry about the CPU overheating.

2. You got a great deal from JPL.

And the #1 reason to buy a Pentium machine:

1. It'll probably work.

Q&A: The Pentium FDIV bug

Q: How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 1.99904274017, but that's close enough for non-technical people.
Q: What do you get when you cross a Pentium PC with a research grant?
A: A mad scientist.
Q: What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on Pentiums?
A: The warning label.
Q: Complete the following word analogy: Add is to Subtract as Multiply
is to:
1) Divide
2) ROUND
3) RANDOM
4) On a Pentium, all of the above
A: Number 4.
Q: What algorithm did Intel use in the Pentium's floating point divider?
A: "Life is like a box of chocolates." (Source: F. Gump of Intel)
Q: Why didn't Intel call the Pentium the 586?
A: Because they added 486 and 100 on the first Pentium and got 585.999983605.

Top Ten New Intel Slogans for the Pentium

9.9999973251 It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug
8.9999163362 It's Close Enough, We Say So
7.9999414610 Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes
6.9999831538 You Don't Need to Know What's Inside
5.9999835137 Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well
4.9999999021 We Fixed It, Really
3.9998245917 Division Considered Harmful
2.9991523619 Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point?
1.9999103517 We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws
0.9999999998 The Errata Inside

Fixing a Flux Capacitor

We found what appears to be a Flux Capacitor that fell out of an alien
spaceship in their haste to depart after being approached by BIG BIRD.

The plutonium supply seems to be adequate but plugging the 3 wire cord into
115 VAC doesn't produce any response. However, probing the logic circuits
with our HP 16500 analyzer indicates that the P9-1000 they are apparently
using to control the display is functional. (It also passes the FDIV bug
test - must not be genuine Intel.)

Upon further examination, we note the device marked @@#$%-@#%@$#-11
appears to be burnt. Would like to know of source for this device or
equivalent. It seems to be in-line with the main power relay.

We would really like to get our infinite energy/time machine going
but are hesitant to jump across this device if it is not just a fuse
or if there are further problems. A black hole in the middle of our
back yard would be really bad for property values.

Beware Those Transformers

(From: William Letendre (WJLServo@worldnet.att.net).)

Engineerin' Department of our company is on 3rd floor; company's main power
XFMR is on utility pole right outside window. This mornin', Scott, engineer
(ME) whose desk is next to window asked, "Hey, Bill, how much power is that
transformer carryin'?"

Thought it over, answered, "Ah, with a full shift in the machine shop, should
be about 200, 300 kW. Why?"

"Oh. Well, what about those high tension wires? What if one broke? Would that
be dangerous? Or, couldn't the transformer just explode?"

"Well, yeah, I guess. Transformers do fail, once in a while. And the high
voltage lines are probably up around 4400 volts, IIRC." Was gettin' a little
irritated at this point, so added, "Guess if the transformer blew, or, if one
of those lines broke and smashed through the window, coroner's report on you
would read 'burned beyond recognition,' or maybe, 'grilled like a chop!' So
what does this have to do with anything?"

Scott shook his head. "I dunno, boss. I'm not real comfortable sittin' that
close to machine carryin' that kind of power. There's an empty desk by the
back wall. Mind if I move?"

Rolled my eyes, said, "Sure, go ahead!"

Just about time Scott had his CAD terminal moved, plugged into LAN drop next
to back wall, one of the other guys pointed out window, "Hey, check out the
transformer!" Damned thing had blue sparks, smoke, comin' out of one of the
porcelain terminals. Consolidated Edison was out in about an hour with 3
trucks, overhaulin' transformer.

Dunno what to make of this, but, do know one thing; if we're ever standin' on
sidewalk, and Scott sez, "Gee, could we stand a little further from curb?" I
won't ask why; I'll just do it!

Engineers Explained

People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like
other people. This can be frustrating to the nontechnical people who
have to deal with them. The secret to coping with technology-oriented
people is to understand their motivations. This chapter will teach
you everything you need to know. I learned their customs and
mannerisms by observing them, much the way Jane Goodall learned about
the great apes, but without the hassle of grooming.

Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one.
The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your
life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this
test to discern the truth.

ENGINEER IDENTIFICATION TEST

You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked.
You...

A. Straighten it.

B. Ignore it.

C. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a
solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud
your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron.

The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody
who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the
whole stupid thing on "Marketing."

SOCIAL SKILLS

Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social
interaction.

"Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from
social interaction:

Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation

Important social contacts

A feeling of connectedness with other humans

In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for
social interactions:

Get it over with as soon as possible.

Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant.

Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects.

FASCINATION WITH GADGETS

To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of
two categories: (1) things that need to be fixed, and (2) things that
will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with
them. Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems
handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people
don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke,
don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't
have enough features yet.

No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering
what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a
shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make
showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of
sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.

FASHION AND APPEARANCE

Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic
thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no
appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or
mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective
of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste.

LOVE OF "STAR TREK"

Engineers love all of the "Star Trek" television shows and movies.
It's a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship Enterprise
are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even having sex with aliens.
This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer, which
consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the
participation of other life forms.

DATING AND SOCIAL LIFE

Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ
various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression
of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above
function.

Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely
recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable,
employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that
many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal
people harbor an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing
engineer-like children who will have high-paying jobs long before
losing their virginity.

Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than
normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties
to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible
men in technical professions:

Bill Gates.

MacGyver.

Etcetera.

Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain
that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death.
Longer if it's a warm day.

HONESTY

Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human
relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from
customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the
truth.

Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things
that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be
expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed
below.

"I won't change anything without asking you first."
"I will return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow."
"I have to have new equipment to do my job."
"I'm not jealous of your new computer."

FRUGALITY

Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or
mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a
problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation
while retaining the greatest amount of cash?"

POWERS OF CONCENTRATION

If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability
to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything
else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be
pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas
have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody
with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer
programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if
he or she snaps out of it.

RISK

Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can.
This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little
mistake, the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something.

EXAMPLES OF BAD PRESS FOR ENGINEERS

Hindenberg.

Space Shuttle Challenger.

SPANet(tm)

Hubble space telescope.

Apollo 13.

Titanic.

Ford Pinto.

Corvair.

The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this:

RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent
people.

REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic
frame.

Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and
rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to
avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible
for reasons that are far too complicated to explain.

If that approach is not sufficient to halt a project, then the
engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically
possible but it will cost too much."

EGO

Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:

How smart they are.

How many cool devices they own.

The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare
that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an
unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is
sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of
challenges quickly become personal -- a battle between the engineer
and the laws of nature.

Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a
problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when they
succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that
is better than sex--and I'm including the kind of sex where other
people are involved.

Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that
somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that
knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer. When an
engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means
it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance
at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something
along these lines: "I will ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to
solve difficult technical problems."

At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand
between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will set upon the
problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop.

The Sex Life of an Electron

(From: Tom The sparky (martinm@wic.net).)

One night when his charge was pretty high Micor Farad decided to
get a cute little coil to help him discharge. He picked up
Millie Amp and took her for a ride on his megacycle. They rode
across Wheatstone Bridge, around by the sine wave, and stopped in
a magnetic field by a flowing current.

Micor Farad, attracted by Millie Amp's characteristic
curve, soon began to lower her resistance to minimum and his
field was fully excited. He laid her on the ground potential,
raised her frequency, lowered her capacitance, and plugged in his
high voltage probe. He inserted it into her socket, connected
them in parallel, and began to short circuit her shunt. Fully
excited Millie cried "ohm, ohm, ohm".

With his tube operating at a maximum peak, and her ciol
vibrating from current flow, she soon reached her maximum peak.
The excess current flow had gotten her hot and Micro Farad was
rapidly discharging having drained off every electron.

They fluxed all night trying different connections and
sockets until his bar magnet had lost all its field strength.
Afterwords, Millie Amp tried self-induction and damaged her
solenoid. With his battery fully discharged, Micro Farad was
unable to excite her generator. So they ended up by reversing
polarity and blowing each other's fuses

About Sears Shop Vac HP Ratings

(From: Kevin AstirCS "1U" KO0B (kferguson@aquilagroup.com).)
I note that air compressor manufacturers have taken after the vacuum sweeper
folks, and are re-inventing the horsepower. Imagine, 6HP at 15A, 115VAC!

(From: sam).

Have you seen Sears shop vacs lately? I think they are also up to 6 HP.
Every week or so, they seem to come out with one that is a little higher
in their HP ratings - I guess internal cold fusion or something.

(From: Pin 2 Hot (pinksnd@io.com).)

Let's see, RPM X Torque = Horsepower.

Thus: No-load RPM X Locked-rotor Torque = Sears Horsepower

Notes:

testing done at 177V DC, equal to peak of 120V AC (AC-DC motors).

Sears Horsepower: How "hoarse" you get trying to talk over one of their
shop-vacs while it's on.

Or maybe it's got something to do with vacuuming performance out at
the stables.

So You Want a Vacation Day?

(From: contributor's name withheld so HR won't find out :-) ).
So you want a day off, let's take a look at what you are asking for:

There are 365 days per year available for work. There are 52 weeks per
year in which you already have two days off per week, leaving 261 day available
for work.

Since you spend 16 hours each day away from work, you have used up 170
days, leaving only 91 days available.

You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee break that accounts for 23 days
each year, leaving only 68 days available. with a one hour lunch period each
day, you have used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work.

You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leave. This leaves you only 20
days available for work.

We are off for 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down
to 15 days.

We generously give you 14 days vacation per year which leaves only 1 day
available for work, and I will be damned if you're going to take that day
off!!!

Sources of Demos (Bill Gates Computer Joke)

(From: Carter B. Schroy (CBS970@AOL.COM).)

Bill Gates died. He was sent to the Afterlife Waiting Room. He was met by
St. Peter, who asked him if he wanted to go to Heaven or Hell, and if he'd
like to see them before he decided. Bill said yes, and St. Peter snapped his
fingers. They appeared on a sunny beach, with people dancing, swimming, and
playing volleball. Just basically having a wonderful time. Good food, good
music, good people. Bill turns to St. Peter and says, "Wow, Heaven is great!"
St. Peter says, "This isn't Heaven, it's Hell. Want to see Heaven?" Mr. Gates
nods yes, and they appear in a shady park, with a few old people sitting on
benches feeding birds. A gentle breeze blows by, and all is quiet and serene.
St. Peter asks Bill, "Well, which would you like?" Bill thinks for a minute,
and says, "Well, if this is Heaven, then I will take Hell." Instantly, he was
plunged up to his neck in red-hot lava, the screams of other tortured souls
filling his ears. He looks up, and sees St. Peter in the waiting room. Bill
calls out to him, and said, "Hey! What's going on? Where's the beach? The
bikini-clad women? The party?" St. Peter turns from his Macintosh to face
Bill, and says, "That was just the demo."

How Mil Specs Live Forever!

The US Standard Railroad Gauge (the distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number; Why was that gauge used?

Because that was the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were
built by English expatriates.

Why did the English people build them that size? Because the first rail lines
were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that
was the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways
used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons. which used
that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Because the first long
distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their
legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial
ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons,
were originally made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made by
or for Imperial Rome, they were all made with similar wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The US Standard Railroad
Gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches is derived from the original Mil Spec for Imperial
Rome's army war chariots. Mil Specs, like bureaucracies, tend to exist
forever.

So, next time you read a Mil Spec and wonder what horse's ass came up with it,
you may be exactly right. Because, the Imperial Roman war chariots were
designed for maneuverability, as narrow as possible, just wide enough to
accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.

(Forwarded by: Kevin Theobald (theobald@capsl.udel.edu).)

Here is an amusing addition from a NASA guy, Howard Winsett:

There is an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and
horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad,
there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main tank.
These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. Thiokol makes the SRBs at their
factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred
to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the
factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the
mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is
slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as
wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced
transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the
width of a horse's ass.

(From: H Chris Spreckley.)

May I in a very short dissertation attempt to correct you on the true
British (and or American) Railway Rail Gauge.

It is in fact 5ft 0 inches true which became known as the 4ft 8.5 inch
gauge.

This 5 feet is derived from the common engineering notation of the gauge
using centre lines when draughting of any rail, girder, beam, column etc.
In theory the rails are 3.5 inches wide as are the tyres on the locomotives
wheels the centre line of these tyres and rails is therefore some 1.75
inches to the outer side of the stated (width or between wheel flanges)
gauge of 4ft 8.5 inches. Therefore we are propelled back to Miss Hey again
where in engineering terms the inside or 'flange' dimension of 4 ft 8.5
inches of between rails requires the two additions of 1.75inches (to centre
line) equaling 3.5 inches to be added to the inside width providing the
actual engineering gauge of 5 feet from which all this discourse commences.

So at the onset of the steam engine running on wheels, generally agreed to
be in mineral mines (on simple flat [steel plate/strap] later angled rail
with the vertical to the outer side of the wheel) all prior to open country
where they took over from the horse it is the contention that the very
first thought that the chap that devised this 'new steam' gauge in some wet
and dirty mine somewhere in England or other circa 1810 said to himself and
no doubt others "The width of the rails shall be 5 Feet, then the designer
draughtsman got the hands on it resulting in the gauge becoming known to be
4ft 8.5 inches to which size all gauging sticks were then manufactured.
Prior to this the horse motivated mining rails were always of a narrower
gauge.

Hence we see the disambiguation of 4ft 8.5 inches and in a different
light.

On Replacing Fuses with Bullets

You have repeatedly been warned: "Do not replace a fuse unless you have
thoroughly checked all other components.... The new fuse may just blow
the second time around."

Not necessarily. I have seen cases where the second time around, some other
component pops off and the fuse survives!

(From: Keith Morgan (morgankk@boat.bt.com).)

Was a .22 caliber bullet the other component Sam mentioned:
(this is an article spotted by Gary Davis in the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette 25 July 1996, and reported in the UK Private Eye magazine)

"I thank God every hour that we weren't on that bridge when Thurston
shot his nuts off, cos we'd both be pushing up the daisies by now,"
Billy Ray Wallis told reporters from his hospital bed in the Baptist
Medical Center, Woodruff County. "When you leave, can you check if
anyone got the frogs from the truck? I'd hate anything to happen to
them."

Wodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder later gave a more coherent account
of that evening's events. "It seems that Thurston Poole, 33, and Billy
Ray Wallis, 38, were returning to Des Arc after a frog-gigging trip,
when the fuse for the headlights on Poole's pick-up truck burned out.
They didn't have a spare, so Wallis took a .22 caliber bullet from his
pistol and found that it fitted perfectly into the fuse box next to
the steering wheel column. The headlights started working again, and
they resumed their journey, with Poole at the wheel.

"Apparently, it never occurred to them that, if the headlight wiring
was faulty, then the bullet would soon overheat. They'd gone about
twenty miles and were about to cross White River bridge when it got
hot enough to discharge itself, striking Poole in the right testicle
and partially severing his scrotum. As a result, the vehicle swerved
off the road and drove through the front window of a hamburger bar.
Poole (who sustained further abrasions from broken glass, and burns
from fried onions) kept shouting at diners 'mind my frogs', while
Wallis (who sustained a broken clavicle) attempted to steal a
chip-fryer in the confusion. I tell you, I've been a state trooper for
ten years, but this is the dumbest thing I've ever come across. I
can't believe that those two would admit how the accident happened.
And all they keep asking about are their damn frogs."

Corporate Down-Sizing Affects Everyone Everywhere

North Pole Memo:

Subject: Famous Reindeer Terminated

The recent announcement that Donner and Blitzen have elected to take the
early reindeer retirement package has triggered a good deal of concern about
whether they will be replaced, and about other restructuring decisions at the
North Pole.

Streamlining is due to the North Pole's loss of dominance of the season's
gift distribution business. Home shopping channels and mail order catalogues
have diminished Santa's market share. He could not sit idly by and permit
further erosion of the profit picture.

The reindeer down-sizing was made possible through the purchase of a late
model Japanese sled for the CEO's annual trip. Improved productivity from
Dasher and Dancer, who summered at the Harvard Business School, is anticipated.

Reduction in reindeer will also lessen airborne environmental emissions for
which the North Pole has received unfavorable press.

I am pleased to inform you that Rudolph's role will not be disturbed.
Tradition still counts for something at the North Pole. Management denies, in
the strongest possible language, the earlier leak that Rudolph's nose got that
way, not from the cold, but from substance abuse. Calling Rudolph "a lush who
was into the sauce and never did pull his share of the load" was an unfortunate
comment, made by one of Santa's helpers and taken out of context at a time of
year when he is known to be under executive stress.

As a further restructuring, today's global challenges require the North Pole
to continue to look for better, more competitive steps. Effective immediately,
the following economic measures are to take place in the "Twelve Days of
Christmas" subsidiary:

The partridge will be retained, but the pear tree never turned out to be the
cash crop forecasted. It will be replaced by a plastic hanging plant,
providing considerable savings in maintenance;

The two turtle doves represent a redundancy that is simply not cost
effective. In addition, their romance during working hours could not be
condoned. The positions are therefore eliminated;

The three French hens will remain intact. After all, everyone loves the
French;

The four calling birds were replaced by an automated voice mail system, with
a call waiting option. An analysis is underway to determine who the birds have
been calling, how often and how long they talked;

The five gold rings have been put on hold by the Board of Directors.
Maintaining a portfolio based on one commodity could have negative implications
for institutional investors. Diversification into other precious metals as
well as a mix of T-Bills and high technology stocks appear to be in order;

The six geese-a-laying constitutes a luxury which can no longer be afforded.
It has long been felt that the production rate of one egg per goose per day is
an example of the decline in productivity. Three geese will be let go, and an
upgrading in the selection procedure by personnel will assure management that
from now on every goose it gets will be a good one;

The seven swans-a-swimming is obviously a number chosen in better times.
The function is primarily decorative. Mechanical swans are on order. The
current swans will be retrained to learn some new strokes and therefore enhance
their outplacement;

As you know, the eight maids-a-milking concept has been under heavy scrutiny
by the EEOC. A male/female balance in the workforce is being sought. The more
militant maids consider this a dead-end job with no upward mobility. Automation
of the process may permit the maids to try a-mending, a-mentoring or
a-mulching;

Nine ladies dancing has always been an odd number. This function will be
phased out as these individuals grow older and can no longer do the steps;

Ten Lords-a-leaping is overkill. The high cost of Lords plus the expense of
international air travel prompted the Compensation Committee to suggest
replacing this group with ten out-of-work congressmen. While leaping ability
may be somewhat sacrificed, the savings are significant because we expect an
oversupply of unemployed congressmen this year;

Eleven pipers piping and twelve drummers drumming is a simple case of the
band getting too big. A substitution with a string quartet, a cutback on new
music and no uniforms will produce savings which will drop right down to the
bottom line;

We can expect a substantial reduction in assorted people, fowl, animals and
other expenses. Though incomplete, studies indicate that stretching deliveries
over twelve days is inefficient. If we can drop ship in one day, service
levels will be improved.

Regarding the lawsuit filed by the attorney's association seeking expansion
to include the legal profession ("thirteen lawyers-a-suing") action is pending.

Lastly, it is not beyond consideration that deeper cuts may be necessary in
the future to stay competitive. Should that happen, the Board will request
management to scrutinize the Snow White Division to see if seven dwarfs is the
right number.

The executives at the North Pole wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a
productive New Year.

Are You a Real Engineer?

(From: Mark Sokos (msokos1@umbc.edu).)

A comment was recently made about the lack of humor on this newsgroup.
So, I did an excite search on "electronics humor", and, nothing. Zip.
Zero. Nada. (Well, I only checked the first page of listings).
So, I did remember snagging this off of the net. It's not quite
electronics humor, but it is engineering humor, which I guess is as
close as we're going to get.

And yes, it's off topic, so go ahead and flame me.

PS: I'm not going to admit (at least not publically) how many of
these I said yes to.

(Author: Jose Herrero (jose@borg.harvard.edu).)

You may be an engineer...

If Dilbert is your hero.

If you stare at an orange juice container because it says CONCENTRATE.

If you want an 8X CDROM for Christmas.

If you can name 6 Star Trek episodes.

If the only jokes you receive are through e-mail.

If your wrist watch has more computing power than a 486DX2-50.

If your idea of good interpersonal communication means getting the
decimal point in the right place.

If you look forward to Christmas only to put together the kids' toys.

If you introduce your wife as "mylady@home.wife".

If your spouse sends you an e-mail instead of calling you to dinner.

If you can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie.

If you use a CAD package to design your son's Pine Wood Derby car.

If you have used coat hangers and duct tape for something other than
hanging coats and taping ducts.

If, at Christmas, it goes without saying that you will be the one to
find the burnt-out bulb in the string.

If you window shop at Radio Shack.

If your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest
Sci-Fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies.

If you have "Dilbert" comics displayed anywhere in your work area.

If you carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test
that actually takes five minutes to run.

If you are convinced you can build a phaser out of your garage door
opener and your camera's flash attachment.

If you don't even know where the cover to your personal computer is.

If you have modified your can-opener to be microprocessor driven.

If you know the direction the water swirls when you flush.

If you own "Official Star Trek" anything.

If you have ever taken the back off your TV just to see what's inside.

If a team of you and your co-workers have set out to modify the
antenna on the radio in your work area for better reception.

If you ever burned down the gymnasium with your Science Fair project.

If you are currently gathering the components to build your own
nuclear reactor.

If you own one or more white short-sleeve dress shirts.

If you have never backed-up your hard drive.

If you are aware that computers are actually only good for playing
games, but are afraid to say it out loud.

If you truly believe aliens are living among us.

If you have ever saved the power cord from a broken appliance.

If you have ever purchased an electronic appliance "as-is".

If you see a good design and still have to change it.

If the sales people at Circuit City can't answer any of your questions.

If you still own a slide rule and you know how to work it.

If the thought that a CD could refer to finance or music never enters
your mind.

If you own a set of itty-bitty screw drivers, but you don't remember
where they are.

If you rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile
tires.

If you have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you
own turns bread into charcoal.

If you have more toys than your kids.

If you need a checklist to turn on the TV.

If you have introduced your kids by the wrong name.

If you have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work.

If your I.Q. number is bigger than your weight.

If the microphone or visual aids at a meeting don't work and you rush
up to the front to fix it.

If you can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary.

If you have memorized the program schedule for the Discovery Channel
and have seen most of the shows already.

If you have ever owned a calculator with no equal key and know what
RPN stands for.

If your father sat 2 inches in front of your family's first color TV
with a magnifying lens to see how they made the colors, and you grew
up thinking that was normal.

If you know how to take the cover off of your computer, and what size
screw driver to use.

If you can type 70 words a minute but can't read your own handwriting.

If people groan at the party when you pick out the music.

If you can't remember where you parked your car for the 3rd time this week.

If you did the sound system for your senior prom.

If your checkbook always balances.

If your wristwatch has more buttons than a telephone.

If you have more friends on the Internet than in real life.

If you thought the real heroes of "Apollo 13" were the Mission
Controllers.

If you think that when people around you yawn, it's because they
didn't get enough sleep.

If you spend more on your home computer than your car.

If you know what http:/ stands for.

If you've ever tried to repair a $5.00 radio.

If you have a neatly sorted collection of old bolts and nuts in your
garage.

If your three year old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to
explain atmospheric absorption theory.

Hardware, Software, Management Humor

(From: Dan Kuechle (dan_kuechle@i-tech.com).)

A hardware engineer, a software engineer, and an engineering manager were
skiing over the weekend. Upon leaving the resort the brakes failed on their
car. They went screaming down the mountain until they drove into a snow
bank. At this point they didn't know what to do. They still had half the
mountain to descend, and no brakes. The engineering manager said "I will head
up a task force to brainstorm the problem, and then come up with a schedule to
implement the outcome." The hardware engineer said "I can fix these brakes!
I will jack up the car, remove the wheels, and fix them with my Swiss army
knife." The software engineer's only comments were "I think we ought to push
the car back up the mountain, try it again, and see if it fails the same way"

To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat
transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two
and three with constant agitation. In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a
radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six,
and seven until the mixture is homogeneous. To reactor #2, add ingredient
eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogeneous mixture in reactor
#1. Additionally, add ingredient nine and ten slowly, with constant
agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any
temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.

Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture
piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a
period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order
rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the
reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer table,
allowing the product to come to equilibrium.

How Data Really Travels

(Author: Anonymous).

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the thrash,
and your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
The your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

You can't say this? What a shame, Sir!
We'll find you another game, Sir...

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of Gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and then you go out with a bang,
Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risk,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

Is Hell Endothermic or Exothermic?

A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate
students. It had one question:

"Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some
variant. One student, however wrote the following:

"First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass.

If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what
rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I
think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will
not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that
exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you
are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since, there
are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more
than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to
hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of
souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law
states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay
the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay
constant.

So, if hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase
until all hell breaks loose.

Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of
souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell
freezes over."

English is Such a Crazy Language

Let's face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or
ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins were not invented in England or french fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is
neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write, but
fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the
plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2
geese. So, one moose, 2 meese? One index, two indices? Is cheese the plural
of choose?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital? Ship by
truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park
on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a
wise guy are opposites? How can the weather be hot as h*ll one day and cold
as h*ll another?

When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out
and an alarm clock goes off by going on.

When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they
are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I
wind up this essay, I end it?

You Wouldn't Believe These on Amazing Stories

Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport
hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.

A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in
the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting
beer cans off each other's head.

A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record
showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety
goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the
film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that
twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave
the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required
seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while
watching the film.

The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons,
setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.

A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by
the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had
boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and
back pain.

Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book
about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to
be copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in
seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.

A convict broke out of jail in Washington D.C., then a few days later
accompanied his girl friend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he
went out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him
paged. Police officers recognized his name and arrested him as he
returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a
metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a
photocopy machine. The message "He's lying." was placed in the
copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the
suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "Lie Detector" was
working, the suspect confessed.

When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to
hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to
call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police
and was arrested.

A Los Angeles man who later said he was "tired of walking," stole a
steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped
aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.

Some 'Facts' About Electricity

(From: Jussi Kaasinen (Jussi.Kaasinen@hut.fi).)

Read this but be careful: you might not get any sleep tonight because of
these shocking facts...

Perhaps the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who
was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal
education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in
1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of
American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was
invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he
invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant
adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends
electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the
electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant
part) sends it right back to the customer again.

This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch
of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since
very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.
In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United
States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it
ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate
increases.

The Farmhouse (A Lawyer Joke)

(From: Jim Lagerkvist (jlager@tir.com).)

A rabbi, a hindu, and a lawyer are in a car. they run out of gas, and are
forced to stop at a farmers house. The farmer says that there are only 2
extra beds, and one person will have to sleep in the barn. The hindu says,
"I'm humble, I will sleep in the barn," so he goes out to the barn. In a few
minutes, the farmer hears a knock on the door. It's the hindu and he says,
"There is a cow in the barn. It's against my beliefs to sleep with a cow."
So the rabbi says, "I'm humble, I will sleep in the barn." A few minutes
later, the farmer hears another knock on the door and its' the rabbi. He says
that it is against his beliefs to sleep where there is a pig and there is a
pig in the barn. So the lawyer is forced to sleep in the barn.

A few minutes later, there is a knock on the door. It's the pig and the cow.

How High Do You Jump (Discharging a TV)?

(From: Bert Christensen).

A tech that worked for me many years ago was holding on to a chassis and
leaning forward to see something on the other side. He was always rather
careless and had hooked up the HV lead in a sloppy >manner. His forehead came
in contact with the 30kv. He jumped up into the air, turned around twice,
said, "I almost f___ING lled myself, >walked out into the customer waiting
area and cried. Ten minutes later he was in working on the same set.

We later drew a scale on a leg of the bench. One inch represented how high you
jumped with 1 kV and 25 inches for 25 kV, etc. It was remarkably accurate.

(From: Vic Tosca (tosca@warwick.net).)

That's a KICKER!! I've got the same thing here, but I have it scaled
to .808 in/kV. I found that's the accurate formula for the average
weight bench tech, including glasses and pocket protector. We also put
a bell on the ceiling- anyone that hits it with his head because of a
shock gets a day off!

It's located right under the emergency repair tool kit, which consists
of a rabbit's foot, a magic wand, a crystal ball, and a hammer. We had
to get rid of the hand grenade...insurance laws, y'know. THAT was a
*great* tool for tough dogs and irate customers!

New and Improved Hell

(From: Dave A. Wreski (dawreski@nic.com).)

Author unknown:

An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his
dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer -- you're in the wrong place."

So the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon,
the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and
starts designing and building improvements. After a while, they've got
air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a
pretty popular guy.

One day God calls Satan on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So,
how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning
and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this
engineer is going to come up with next."

God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake - he
should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm
keeping him."

God says, "Send him back up here or I will sue."

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where
are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

Don't Lose Those Unpacking Instructions!

A SCSI drive shipped from Bubba's in Louisiana with THIS article in the
packaging. No kidding!!!

ACTUAL UNPACKING INSTRUCTIONS

IMPORTANT! READ THIS BEFORE USING YOUR NEW DEVICE!

Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give
you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtedly
will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver.

Which is why we ask you to:

PLEASE, FOR GOD'S SAKE, READ THIS OWNERS MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK
THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED
IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE CONTROLS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE
SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER
AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD IS ALSO FIDDLING WITH THE CONTROLS,
RIGHT? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE
WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?!?

We're sorry. We just get a little crazy sometimes because we're always getting
back "defective" merchandise where it turns out that the consumer inadvertently
bathed the device in acid for six days. So, in writing these instructions, we
naturally tend to assume that your skull is filled with dead insects, but we
mean nothing by it. OK? Now let's talk about:

1. UNPACKING THE DEVICE

The device is encased in foam to protect it from the Shipping People, who like
nothing more than to jab spears into outgoing boxes.

PLEASE INSPECT THE CONTENTS CAREFULLY FOR GASHES OR IDA MAE BARKER'S ENGAGEMENT
RING, WHICH SHE LOST LAST WEEK, AND SHE THINKS MAYBE IT WAS LOST WHILE SHE WAS
PACKING DEVICES.

Ida Mae really wants that ring back, because it is her only proof of
engagement, and her fiancee, Stuart, is now seriously considering backing out
on the whole thing, in as much as he had consumed most of a bottle of Jim Beam
in Quality Control when he decided to pop the question. It is not without
irony that Ida Mae's last name is "Barker", if you catch our drift. WARNING:
DO NOT EVER, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, THROW AWAY THE BOX OR ANY OF THE PIECES OF
STYROFOAM, EVEN THE LITTLE ONES SHAPED LIKE PEANUTS.

If you attempt to return the device to the store, and you are missing one
single peanut, the store personnel will laugh in the chilling manner exhibited
by Joseph Stalin just after he enslaved Eastern Europe.

YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable.

IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: YOU IMMEDIATELY should turn to your
spouse and say "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can
get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major
transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's why."

WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret. And not Pete.

2. PLUGGING IN THE DEVICE

The plug on this device represents the latest thinking of the electrical
industry's Plug Mutation Group, which, in a continuing effort to prevent
consumers from causing hazardous electrical current to flow through their
appliances, developed the Three-Pronged Plug, then the Plug Where One Prong Is
Bigger Than The Other. Your device is equipped with the revolutionary new Plug
Whose Prongs Consist Of Six Small Religious Figurines Made Of Chocolate.

DO NOT TRY TO PLUG IT IN!

Lay it gently on the floor near an outlet, out of direct sunlight, and water it
weekly with a damp handkerchief.

WARNING: WHEN YOU ARE LAYING THE PLUG ON THE FLOOR, DO NOT HOLD A SHARP OBJECT
IN YOUR OTHER HAND AND TRIP OVER THE CORD AND POKE YOUR EYE OUT, AS THIS COULD
VOID THE WARRANTY.

3. OPERATION OF THE DEVICE

WARNING: WE MANUFACTURE ONLY THE ATTRACTIVE DESIGNER CASE. THE ACTUAL WORKING
CENTRAL PARTS OF THE DEVICE ARE MANUFACTURED IN JAPAN. THE INSTRUCTIONS WERE
TRANSLATED BY MRS. SHIRLEY PELTWATER OF ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE, WHO HAS NEVER
ACTUALLY BEEN TO JAPAN BUT DOES HAVE MOST OF "SHOGUN" ON TAPE.

INSTRUCTIONS: For results that can be the finest, it is our advising that:
NEVER to hold these buttons two times!! Except the battery. Next taking the
(something) earth section may cause a large occurrance! However. If this is
not a trouble, such rotation is a very maintenance action, as a kindly
(something) virepoint from Drawing B.

4. WARRANTY

Be it hereby known that this device, together with but not excluding all those
certain parts thereunto, shall be warranted against all defects, failures and
malfunctions as shall occur between now and Thursday afternoon, shortly before
2, during which time the Manufacturer will, at no charge to the Owner, send the
device to our Service People, who will emerge from their caves and engage in
rituals designed to cleanse it of evil spirits. This warranty does not cover
the attractive designer case.

WARNING: IT MAY BE A VIOLATION OF SOME LAW THAT MRS. SHIRLEY PELTWATER HAS
"SHOGUN" ON TAPE.

An Engineer in Paradise

(From Glenn E Wilkop (Glenn_E_Wilkop@email.whirlpool.com).)

This one comes from our beloved Mr. Tibbs... Enjoy!

A rather inhibited engineer finally splurged on a luxury cruise to the
Caribbean. It was the "craziest" thing he had ever done in his life.
Just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, a hurricane roared on the
huge ship, capsizing it like a child's toy. Somehow the engineer,
desperately hanging on to a life preserver, managed to wash ashore on
a secluded island. Outside of beautiful scenery, a spring-fed pool,
bananas and coconuts, there was little else. He lost all hope and for
hours on end, sat under the same palm tree.

One day, after several months had passed, a gorgeous woman in a small
rowboat appeared. "I'm from the other side of the island," she
said. "Were you on the cruise ship, too?" "Yes, I was", he answered,
"But where did you get that rowboat?" "Well, I whittled the oars from
gum tree branches, wove the reinforced gunnel from palm branches, and
made the keel and stern from a Eucalyptus tree." "But what did you
use for tools?" asked the man. "There was an unusual strata of
alluvial rock exposed on the south side of the island. I discovered
that if I fired it to a particular temperature in my kiln, it melted
into forgeable ductile iron. Anyhow, that's how I got the tools. But
enough of that," she said, "where have you been living all this time?
I don't see any shelter." "To be honest, I have just been sleeping on
the beach," he said. "Would you like to come to my place?" the woman
asked. The engineer nodded dumbly.

She expertly rowed them around to her side of the island, and tied up
the boat with a handsome strand of hand-woven hemp topped with a neat
back splice. They walked up a winding stone walk she had laid around a
palm tree. There stood an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and
white. "It's not much but I call it home."Inside she said, "sit
down, please. Would you like to have a drink?" "No, thanks," said the
man. "One more coconut juice and I will throw up." "It won't be coconut
juice," the woman replied. I have a crude still out back so we can
have authentic Pina Coladas." Trying to hid his amazement, the man
accepted the drink and they sat down on her couch to talk. After they
had exchanged stories, the woman asked, "Tell me, have you always had
a beard?" "No," the man replied. " I was clean shaven all my life
till I ended up on this island." "Well, if you'd like to shave,
there's a razor upstairs in the bathroom." The man, no longer
questioning anything, went upstairs to the bathroom and shaved with an
intricate bone-and-shell device that was honed razor sharp. Next he
showered, not even attempting to guess how she managed to get warm
water into the bathroom. Then he went back downstairs. "You look
great," said the woman. "I think I will go up and slip into something
more comfortable." As she did, the man continued to sip his Pina
Colada. After a short time, the woman, smelling of gardenias. returned
revealing a gown fashioned out of pounded palm fronds. "Tell me," she
asked, "We've both been out here for a very long time with no
companionship. You know what I mean. Have you been lonely...is there
anything you really miss? Something that all men and women need?
Something that would be really nice right now?" "Yes there is!" the
man replied, shucking off his shyness. "There is something I've
wanted to do for so long but on this island it was well...impossible."
"Well, it is not impossible any more" the woman said. The man,
practically panting in excitement, said breathlessly, "You mean you
actually figured out some way we can check our e-mail here?"

Hot Water and Ice Makers

My neighbor just bought a new fridge. He said he was gonna put in an
icemaker line, so I stopped by to see how he was getting along. He said he
was almost done, but had some trouble early on:

He had called his cousin, who told him to tap into the HOT water line,
since "hot water freezes faster--that's a fact" he tells me. So I bit my
tongue and waited for him to finish telling me what went wrong. "Did it
melt the plastic line?", I thought. No, it seems that he forgot that the
same water that was going into his icemaker was going to the "cold water
through the door". He would get one glass of cold water, then a glass of
HOT! So he had to redo everything on a cold line.

Geez Louis! What people will believe.... "hot water freezes faster"! Insane.

Editor's note: The "Hot water freezes faster" thread, like "NiCds and the
memory effect" and "PCs versus Macs" threads are typically never ending.
There are simply too many variables to consider in an Internet discussion.

Horsepower Ratings and AC Line Magnets

"How can an electric motor generate 5HP from a 120VAC, 15A wall outlet that
puts out only 2.4 HP?"

(From: John M. Feiereisen (feierejm@utrc.utc.com).)

Maybe they were using Ecoblow(tm) power line magnets. Ordinary electricity
molecules clump up and do not efficiently energize electrical equipment. The
powerful magnetic field of the Ecoblow breaks up these clumps and aligns the
electricity molecules through a process known as gullibility-induced
victimization, thereby resulting in more efficient scam - oops - operation.

Using an Ecoblow, you can squeeze almost 35 HP out of an ordinary 120 V, 15 A
circuit!

A local bakery installed an Ecoblow 3 on the power cord to their industrial
size mixer. Heck, the thing spins so fast now, they don't even have use the
oven to bake their bread. (Good thing, too, since they burn their bread with
it ever since they installed the Ecoflow(tm) gas line magnet.)

I've got an Ecoblow 3 on the power cord to my 128K Mac and now it's about
twice as fast as a Sun Ultra 2! An amazing side effect is that I'm now able
run codes in 128KB of memory when they used to take a minimum of 64 MB!

I'm currently in the process of coupling an electric motor to an electrical
generator. An Ecoblow 3 on the output of the generator will allow me to power
the electric motor *and* produce enough electricity to power my house!

All About AC Batteries

"This AC Battery thing is all conspiracy - a US Government cover-up.
However, now we have the "Net" and soon the truth will be out about
Elvis, Roswell, lost socks and AC 9V batteries."

(From: Bob Myers (myers@fc.hp.com).)

Sigh.

I can't believe what a young, gullible crowd we have here. You guys will
swallow ANYTHING.

Any true Old Hand at electronics would know that the AC output from 9V
batteries is simply a holdover from the days of portable tube radios. The AC
was used to run the filaments, and also served to drive the DC-to-DC converter
that was used to obtain the 100-200V of plate voltage from the 9V DC output.
(Yes, they tried the obvious route of simply making 200 VDC batteries - still
with the necessary AC output, mind you! - but some tragic accidents at a few
K-marts (which were ultimately traced to a simple packaging defect) ended THAT
standard really quickly, let me tell you.

Today, of course, it's rare to find a product which actually makes USE of the
AC output from these batteries, with the exception of some earlier portable CD
players which derived the base for the multiple-phase oversampling input
oscillation-compensation stage backup clock from it. (And boy, weren't THOSE
designs fun, huh?) But once a standard is established, it's hard to get rid
of it. Especially with all those production lines already tooled up. Sure,
they might save a little in not having to add the cavorite in at the anode
insertion process, but it's NOT worth completely rebuilding the line, trust
me.

CDs in the Microwave

In response to the following exchange:

"Yes, my microwave-damaged CD's are difficult to repair too. :)"

"What are micro wave damaged CD's?"

(From: DaViD Boulet/Don Harley (dharley@bellatlantic.net).)

The trick is to use a very high-quality line-conditioner for the microwave. I
try to microwave my CD's late at night when the electricity is "cleanest" to
get the best results. Also, I've found that the newer microwaves with LED
time-displays seem to add some euphonic properties to the sound...more relaxed
treble, smoother string sound and more liquid midrange. What would be great is
if I could get a microwave oven with a detachable power cord so I could use a
good-quality MIT power cable. Now *that* would be neat.

I'm hoping that some audiophile company picks up on this and gives a
tube-based microwave. Too bad Audio Alchemy went out of business. I heard that
they had plans to release an audiophile-designed (tube?) microwave oven
before they went under. Any ideas if Camelot might pick up on this? The
important thing is that they keep the price under the $1000 to make it
affordable to the "normal" starving audiophile.

"Ahh, have you tried STEREO m'waves yet? You have to buy 2 CDs, but the
sound is well worth it. Make sure that both microwaves are the same
brand so that you can use just 1 remote..."

(From: DaViD Boulet/Don Harley (dharley@bellatlantic.net).)

I like your suggestion except for one thing...I don't believe that remotes
should be part of a high-end microwave set-up. In my opinion...one should get
up to change the minutes/defrost setting. My experience has shown that, in
general, companies who offer remotes with their microwaves seem to compromise
in sound-quality. Then again, this effect is not resultant from the remote
itself. It just seems to stem from a "philosophy" of consumer-gadgetry that
many "receiver" style microwave ovens reflect. My favorite (and best sounding)
microwave is plain black...with a simple "on-off" switch and no tone controls.

(From: Pat Crean (pat@crean.com).)

Mine sounded FANTASTIC until the turntable stopped - I'm going to make sure my
next microwave has a built-in carousel for uninterrupted listening pleasure!

(From: Ian Stirling 000033C19ADC.NO_UCE@mauve.demon.co.uk).)

Hmm, anyone thought about making a plasma speaker, using a modulated microwave?

I doubt that with the grade of microwave-wire you're using...you'd possibly be
able to hear the improvement. Why invest hundreds of dollars in a high-end
microwave set-up (including disc treatments like the marinating
solvent...which I heard at my friend's house and it *really* makes a
noticeable difference...especially in the bass--much more dynamic and full)
only to shove that signal through a cheap pair of interconnects? IMO, you
should have *just* as much money invested in your microwave cables as you
spend on the rest of microwave-system.

(From: Derrick Hopkins (dhopkins@infi.net).)

Oh please. If you're going to go with Microwaved CD's(instead of the vastly
superior Oven cooked LP's) it doesn't really matter kind of interconnect you
use. A micro waved atom is a microwaved atom..period. Even if it's garbled a
little, the average person can hear a difference.

When you get past all of the audiophile/gourmet snobbery, you'll realize that
a $99 Walmart microwave sounds just as good as a $7000 McIntosh microwave.

Consumer Reports did a huge feature on this back in March '92. A Kmart
microwave placed ahead of Carver, Sony, Westinghouse, and Adcom. The only
model to beat it was Denon and that's only because it was THX/Redenbokker
certified.

(From: DaViD Boulet/Don Harley (dharley@bellatlantic.net).)

First of all...we *all* know that when consumer reports rates
microwaves...sound quality is the last thing on their mind. If I recall, they
didn't even feel that gold-plated-audiophile microwaves offered any sonic
improvement! Consumer reports is only interested in specs and features...

Secondly, your assertion that a 10 year old conventional oven-baked LP can
sound *better* than a microwaved CD won't be true much longer. Once we get the
next-generation of DVD-based Microwaves with 24-beep/96-calories and
multi-panel sound, the debate between analog-ovens and digital microwaves will
be over once and for all.

(From: Guillermo Gonzalez (gonzalez@netrox.net).)

Yeah, but my problem remains, that the copper sulfate used in the green marker
that I use on my CD's, well, it causes some serious arcing in the microwave...

Alas, what is an audiophile to do?

(From: L. E. Sixma (lesixma@introweb.nl).)

Reheat the lot in a gas-oven for 24 hours at a temperature of 215 degrees
Centigrade could do the trick. This is a classic analogue trick. Still you got
to be shure that the cookies are taken out in time or else they will be
sounding awful. Cassette-spaghetti takes less cooking time and in this case
100 degrees will do for audiophile ear-food.

(From: Nicholas Bodley (nbodley@tiac.net).)

Just a tad off color, but curious. Reminds me of the apparently true story
about the red-tailed hawks that would periodically let out a long stream above
high-voltage transmission lines and cause arcs that tripped circuit breakers
and shut down the lines. This was a significant problem for a while, until
they found out how to make the hawks move elsewhere (I've forgotten how they
did it). Apparently, the hawks weren't hurt...

The Barking Dog

(From: Jack Kraft (jackjk@iwaynet.net).)

It is common practice in England to ring a telephone by signaling extra
voltage across one side of the two wire circuit and ground (earth in England).
When the subscriber answers the phone, it switches to the two wire circuit for
conversation. This method allows two parties on the same line to be signaled
without disturbing each other.

Anyway, an elderly lady with several pets called to say that her telephone
failed to ring when her friends called and on the few occasions when it did
ring her dog always barked first just before the ring. Pat proceeded to the
scene, curious to see this psychic dog.

He climbed the nearby pole, hooked his test set to the lady's line, and dialed
the number. The phone didn't ring. He tried again. The dog barked loudly,
followed by a ringing telephone. Climbing down the pole the amazed Pat found:

The dog was tied to the telephone systems ground post via a metal chain and
collar.

The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current.

After several such jolts, the dog would start barking and urinating on the
ground.

On the Effects of Magnetic Water Softeners

(From: several authors, unknown, for obvious reasons).

"Testing magnetic softeners can be very dangerous. Should you accidentally
over-magnetize the water and unknowingly drink the same, your stomach
could burst if you come too near a large ferrous object."

"This happened to a friend of mine. With the philosophy "if one is good,
two is better", he put two magnetic water softeners on the same line. Being
warm from doing the job, he took a large drink, than walked by a steel
support post in his basement. He was in the hospital for over a month
while they did reconstructive surgery on his guts...

Oddly enough, until the magnets were removed, all his faucets constantly
oriented themselves toward the north. It was spooky..."

"This really explains a lot for me!

I installed one of these when we first moved into our house 4 years
ago. Ever since then we wake up each morning facing north for no
apparent reason. If my wife and I sleep facing the same direction
(head to toe) we wake up on opposite sides of the bed. If we sleep in
opposite directions we wake up clinging to each other in the middle of
the bed. Our dishes and clothes always manage to align with north
after several days in the drawers too. My 10 month old daughter just
started to crawl and she only crawls towards north. We have shale in
the ground here and a well. Shale contains lots of iron. We must be
magnetizing the iron molecules in the water. The grass that I water
always seems to bend north no matter which way I mow. Several floppy
disks and video tapes which I stored near an humidifier were
mysteriously erased. I seem to bump into large steel objects a lot.
Some times I have a hard time getting out of the car, and I never seem
to be able to get a compass to work correctly."

In response to the question: "Why are magnetic water softeners so expensive":

"That's probably because you're pricing it as though they were ORDINARY
magnets, which of course are fairly inexpensive. But, as anyone will tell you,
ordinary magnets do not have any water-conditioning capabilities.

I believe the magnets used in these water conditioners are quantum-mechanic
super-heterodyne field effect tachyon-modulated (QMSHFETM) magnets, which of
course are more expensive. The manufacturer uses a proprietary process which
converts ordinary magnets into the QMSHFETM type, and the process ain't cheap.
(This same process, I believe, is what is used to make the 'blue water' that
goes into those Laundry CD's and other devices which replace laundry
detergent. Hence, these devices are also much more expensive than one would
expect for a piece of plastic filled with blue dye.)"

"Of course the price is higher than the materials; the question is, what are
the potential benefits worth to you?

After we started using it, our water became so soft we have to add salt to it
to get the soap off our skin; my polyps shrank; and my children started
getting better grades at school. If Monsieur Henri Paul had passed his wine
through a magnetic conditioner, all this would never have happened. So
anyway, I recommend it highly at any price.

In addition, I have been watering my flowers with the magnetized water. You've
never seen such roses...they're the size of satellite dishes. (I mean those
new DSS ones, not the old large ones. Maybe if I planted old roses...)
Curiously, the roses all point north. I guess that's because they're
magnetized. This makes them useless as satellite dishes, because the
geosynchronous satellites are all in the southern sky."

"Yeah, but have you tried putting the conditioned water on dollar bills?
Several weeks after getting mine, I left a couple of one dollar bills in my
pants in the wash. Boy was I surprised when I took the pants out of the dryer
to find two *TEN* dollar bills in the pocket.

Since then, I've laundered over 70 one dollar bills, netting me a $630 profit,
which was almost enough to pay for the magnet. I'm seriously saving up for
another one, figuring my dryer will then spit out $100 bills, saving me lots
of time!"

(From: Andy Wing).

A magnetic water softener limerick:

"The MWT pundits won't yield
Despite no 'hard' evidence to wield, of course
will flog the dead horse
And insists that it works in the field!

Suggestions for Repairing Scratched CDs

(From: Christopher Bedwell (Bedwell@southwest.com.au).)

Try connecting the laser on your CD player to a flux capacitor. That should
generate the 1.21 Giga Watts needed to repair the proton electrical photon
surface. Hopefully with enought plutonium you can glow in the dark too!!!

Or you could just rub it in a MacDonalds burger! that certainly has enough
chemical content residue to melt and re-bond anything.

Warnings about Sucking up Radio Waves

(From: Pat Crean (pat@crean.com).)

You have to be very careful when using devices with good sensitivity.

Remember, the transmitters are pumping a certain amount of power into the
VHF/UHF bands with the expectation that there are receiving devices
available to absorb it. If too many people use highly sensitive receivers,
the excess energy not being absorbed will accumulate until we have an
explosion in the affected band that will rival Krakatoa in its effects.

Engineers versus Business Executives

Engineers and scientists will never make as much money as business executives.

Now a rigorous mathematical proof that explains why this is true:

Postulate 1: KNOWLEDGE is POWER

Postulate 2: TIME is MONEY

As every engineer knows: WORK
--------- = POWER
TIME
Since KNOWLEDGE = POWER, and TIME = MONEY, we have: WORK
--------- = KNOWLEDGE
MONEY
Solving for money, we get: WORK
------------- = MONEY
KNOWLEDGE

Thus, as KNOWLEDGE approaches zero, MONEY approaches infinity, regardless
of the WORK done!

Conclusions: The less you know, the more money you Make.

Note: It has been speculated that the reason why Bill Gates dropped out of
Havard's math program was because he stumbled upon this proof as an
undergraduated, and dedicated the rest of his carrer to the pursuit of
ignorance.

(From: John Woodgate (jmw@jmwa.demon.co.uk).)

But there is a third postulate, at least equally well-known as those:

Postulate 3: MONEY is POWER

But WORK/TIME = MONEY only if you are paid by the hour: monthly staff do not
get overtime pay.

Keeping Electricity Working

(From: Dave VanHorn" (uce@ftc.gov).)

Warning: Do not read while drinking!

This is even funnier if you follow Alt.religion.scientology, but all by
itself, it's a hoot.

HUMOR - KEEPING ELECTRICITY WORKING

The loyalist officers in 4th dimensional hiding captured the following post
from the alt.religion.electricity newsgroup in an alternate universe. Any
resemblance to Earth people living or dead is purely accidental and is due to
God playing dice with the various universes.

-- The Pilot

KEEPING ELECTRICITY WORKING - A 21st Century Retrospective

By David MissCambridge, Keeper of the Current

Issue authority granted by the first Church of Edison

As KofC of the CofE, it is with humble pride and pleasure that I announce the
upcoming hundredth anniversary of one of our most basic policies, Keeping
Electricity Working, issued by our glorious founder on Jan 17, 1898.

It is this policy above all others which has preserved the technology of
electricity for us and future generations.

It was here that TOM first identified the evil world conspiracy of financiers,
plagiarists, and space aliens that was attempting to pervert his discoveries
and deny electricity to mankind.

Consider, for example, the evil Tesla who proposed that the divine current
should ALTERNATE! A stupid and ridiculous idea. How would it achieve any
useful work if the current simply zig zagged back and forth in the wires? He
would have undermined the entire structure of DIRECT CURRENT which moves
DIRECTLY to its target and achieves LIGHTNING FAST 100 PERCENT STANDARD
RESULTS.

But TAE, by virtue of his superior genius, saw that it wasn't just the
yappings of Tesla and Westinghouse, for the same attacks and unworkable ideas
were showing up all over the world.

Of course we know that the characteristics of a suppressive person would be to
deny the truth of the CofE and seek to deny it financing by undercutting its
prices. But it was only TAE himself who could spot the true source of all
these SPs, the true suppressive influence behind them.

We now know that it was the Venusians, led by their evil telepathic ruler,
XeMoonie, who inspired these diabolical attacks. But by means of our tin foil
protective hats and an enlightened legal system, we have driven his
influences off of Earth and will keep mankind free of his dreadful doings.

Now remember the key points,

Stamp out any experimentation or variation of our workable tech.

Buy a fresh foil hat from your local CofE every year

Report any squirrel wire twisters to the police immediately.

Remember that only certified CofE graduates may work on anything connected
with electricity. We know that the courses are expensive, but the results are
proven.

For Electricity is dangerous and anyone who applys squirrel practices to twist
wires on their own could be electrocuted or have their house burned down.
Your entire neighborhood is at risk if you ignore them. Keeping our homes
safe is everybody's job.

And we have a wonderful new TECH BREAKTHROUGH to announce.

By careful study of TAE's research notes, we have discovered that the size of
the wire might be increased to carry more current.

Our new double sized copper conductors will be available next year at only
$100 dollars a yard. Not only will this bring about obvious savings, but it
will allow the average apartment house to support more lighting fixtures.

With this breakthrough, we think that it will even be possible to place lights
in stairwells. Just imagine it, your iceman will no longer have to stumble
around in the dark with a heavy and potentially dangerous cube of ice for your
icebox.

We are working now on a project to carve TAE's writings onto iron plates and
bury these in secret vaults all over the world. This will ensure that future
civilizations will benefit from his wisdom and knowledge. Send your
contributions in now.

A transistor is rather like the human alimentary canal, after the
typical USA diet of burgers and chips; - it constipates, as do
semiconductor diodes with no appled bias - the available holes get
filled in and nothing can move.

The base current is like a small application of laxative; some of
the constipation passes through, until the effect of the laxative wears
off. The total throughput depends upon the Mobility. By applying a
continuous feed of laxative, then a continuous current passes through.
Applying too much laxative results in saturation - i.e., there is a limit
to the maximum throughput, depending on the external circuit; in this
case, the maximum rate at which you can feed in the burgers at one end.
(If you are a customer of MacDonalds, here in Chippenham, Wiltshire,
UK then this rate is very low - I have been there twice, and both times,
the service was *APPALLING*.)

The difference between PNP and NPN is the direction. In the old
days, PNP was used, whereby one injected from the rear end, using a sort
of huge syringe - hence PNP - "Put-in Near Poo". More recently NPN is
more common, where the laxative is entered via a carrier of some sort,
usually chocolate and so we have NPN - "Now Pleasant Nutrient".

Despite the adverse effects, the USA diet of burgers and chips
carries on, and recourse has to be made once again to the chocolate. Now
the ratio of the carriers of the constipation, the burgers and chips, is
much higher than that of the chocolate. Thus they are referred to as the
Majority Carriers and the Minority Carriers. If you indulge too much,
you find that the vendor will provide you with a paper bag, known as an
Excess Carrier.

More recently, there are problems with impurities and you find that
the opposite effect occurs. You have no time to reach home before
diarrhea takes over. You have no option but to stop the car and nip
over a gate into a field. Hence the Field Effect Transistor. This time
you have to inject something to STOP the flow. Now, assuming that there
was a certain control over events; nothing happened until the Gate was
encountered, you then became the Source of flow, and the field itself
acted as the Drain. What was originally dirt, became grass, was consumed
by the Cow, you ate it as a burger, and it has now returned to the
topsoil, an effect known in the trade as Surface Recombination.
(Incidentally, did you know that Diarrhea is hereditary? Apparently it
runs in the jeans.)

Some of the impurities accumulate in your rear end, and no matter how
valiantly you try, you cannot rid yourself of them. Hence In-de-Bum is
known as a Try-Valiant Impurity. In the same way, Arsenic, well known
for its ill-effects and accumulation in the body tissues is known as a
Pent-Up-Valiant Impurity.

Bill Gates' New House

(Forwarded by: Bob Parker.)

While the Gateses are moving in from their temporary quarters nearby, final
construction of their new house is not expected to be completed until the end
of the year. Now if I were a contractor with a sense of humor...

Bill: "There are a few issues we need to discuss."

Contractor: "Ah, you have our basic support option. Calls are free
for the first 90 days and $75 a call thereafter. Okay?"

Bill: "Uh, yeah... the first issue is the living room. We think it's
a little smaller than we anticipated."

Contractor: "Yeah. Some compromises were made to have it out by the
release date."

Bill: "We won't be able to fit all our furniture in there."

Contractor: "Well, you have two options. You can purchase a new,
larger living room; or you can use a Stacker."

Bill: "Stacker?"

Contractor: "Yeah, it allows you to fit twice as much furniture into
the room. By stacking it, of course, you put the entertainment center
on the couch... the chairs on the table... etc. You leave an empty
spot, so when you want to use some furniture you can unstack what you
need and then put it back when you're done."

Bill: "Uh... I dunno... issue two. The second issue is the light
fixtures. The bulbs we brought with us from our old home won't fit.
The threads run the wrong way."

Contractor: "Oh! Thats easy. Those bulbs aren't plug and play.
You'll have to upgrade to the new bulbs."

Bill: "And the electrical outlets? The holes are round, not
rectangular. How do I fix that?"

Contractor: "Just uninstall and reinstall the electrical system."

Bill: "You're kidding!?"

Contractor: "Nope. Its the only way."

Bill: " Well... I have one last problem. Sometimes, when I
have guests over, someone will flush the toilet and it won't stop.
The water pressure drops so low that the showers don't work."

Contractor: "That's a resource leakage problem. One fixture is
failing to terminate and is hogging the resources preventing access
from other fixtures."

Bill: "And how do I fix that?"

Contractor: "Well, after each flush, you all need to exit the house,
turn off the water at the street, turn it back on, reenter the house
and then you can get back to work."

Bill: "That's the last straw. What kind of product are you selling
me?"

Contractor: "Hey, if you don't like it... nobody made you buy it."

Bill: "And when will this be fixed?"

Contractor: "Oh, in your next house -- which will be ready to release
sometime near the end of next year. Actually it was due out this
year, but we've had some delays..."

The Philogiston Theory of Electronics

(Original author's name not available or he didn't want credit.)

(Forwarded by: Atesli (atesli@aol.com).)

A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of
a Basic Truth came to me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't see it! John
Kuivinen, Chairman of the Palomar Repeater Committee, (an amateur radio
group), I think has discovered what makes integrated circuits work. He says
that smoke (yes, you read smoke) is the thing that makes ICs work because
every time you let the smoke out of it, the IC stops working. I was
flabbergasted!!! Why of course he's right!!!

Smoke makes all things electrical work. Remember the last time the smoke
escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator? Didn't it stop working?

I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It's the wiring
harness that carries smoke from one device to another in your machine and when
the harness springs a leak, it lets the smoke out all at once, and then
nothing works. Can't you see now why motors have to be large to handle all
that smoke, and don't they have smoke all over the inside when they quit
working? Think about it!

Microsoft TV Dinners

(Forwarded from: Nicholas Bodley (nbodley@tiac.net).)

Instructions for Microsoft's New TV Dinner Product:

You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to accept
and honor Microsoft's rights to all TV dinners. You may not give anyone
else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an infringement of
Microsoft's rights). You may, however, let others smell and look at your
dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is.

If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set the
oven using these keystrokes:
If you have a Mac oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven will
set itself and cook the dinner.

If you have a Unix oven, insert the dinner, enter the ingredients of the
dinner (found on the package label), the weight of the dinner, and the
desired level of cooking and press start. The oven will calculate the time
and heat and cook the dinner exactly to specifications. Be forewarned that
Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your oven must be restarted.

This is a simple procedure. Remove the dinner from the oven and enter
Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger than
the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of which are
empty. These are for future menu items. If the tray is too large to fit
in your oven you will need to upgrade your equipment.

Dinners are only available from registered outlets, and only the chicken
variety is currently produced. If you want another variety, call Microsoft
Help and they will explain that you really don't want another variety.
Microsoft Chicken is all you really need. Microsoft has disclosed plans to
discontinue all smaller versions of their chicken dinners. Future releases
will only be in the larger family size. Excess chicken may be stored for
future use, but must be saved only in Microsoft approved packaging.

Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after '98. However, that
version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get thrilled in
advance.

Microsoft dinners may be incompatible with other dinners in the freezer,
causing your freezer to self-defrost. This is a feature, not a bug. Your
freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway.

Did They Really Say That?

The following are questions actually asked of witnesses by attorneys during
trials and, in certain cases, the responses given by insightful witnesses:

"Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't
know about it until the next morning?"

"The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?"

"Were you present when your picture was taken?"

"Were you alone or by yourself?"

"Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?"

"Did he kill you?"

"How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"

"You were there until the time you left, is that true?"

"How many times have you committed suicide?"

Q: "So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "And what were you doing at that time?"

Q: "She had three children, right?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "How many were boys?"
A: "None."
Q: "Were there any girls?"

Q: "You say the stairs went down to the basement?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "And these stairs, did they go up also?"

Q: "Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon, didn't you?"
A: "I went to Europe, Sir."
Q: "And you took your new wife?"

Q: "How was your first marriage terminated?"
A: "By death."
Q: "And by who's death was it terminated?"

Q: "Can you describe the individual?"
A: "He was about medium height and had a beard."
Q: "Was this a male, or a female?"

Q: "Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice
which sent to your attorney?"
A: "No, this is how I dress when I go to work."

Q: "Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?"
A: "All my autopsies are performed on dead people."

Q: "All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?"
A: "Oral."

Q: "Do you recall the time that you examined the body?"
A: "The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.."
Q: "And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?"
A: "No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy."

Q: "You were not shot in the fracas?"
A: "No, I was shot midway between the fracas and the navel."

Q: "Are you qualified to give a urine sample?"
A: "I have been since early childhood."

Q: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
A: "No."
Q: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
A: "No."
Q: "Did you check for breathing?"
A: "No."
Q: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the
autopsy?"
A: "No."
Q: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
A: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
Q: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
A: "It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law
somewhere."

Battery Humor

What Happens When Engineers Think Too Much About Christmas

(Forwarded by: Steve Seaman (sseaman@fundy.net).)

It's an oldie, but a goodie.

No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species
of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are
insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer,
which only Santa has seen.

There are 2 billion children (under 18) in the world. But since Santa
doesn't appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish children,
that reduces the work load to 15% of the total - 378 million or so. At
an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes.

One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with thanks to time zones and
the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west. This works
out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian
household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop
out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute
the remaining gifts under the tree, eat the snacks, get back up the
a chimney, get back in the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming
that each of these 91.8 million homes are distributed evenly (which we
know to be false but for the sake of these calculations we will accept)
we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75 1/2
million miles, not counting bathroom stops.
This means that Santa's sleigh is traveling at 650 miles per second,
3000 times the speed of sound. For comparison, the fastest man made
vehicle, the Ulysses space probe moves at a poky 27.4 MPS; the average
reindeer runs at 15 MPH.

The sleighs payload adds another interesting element. Assuming that
each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (2 pounds),
the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons not counting Santa, who is
inexorably described as overweight. On land, confessional reindeer can
pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see
point one) could pull TEN TIMES the usual amount, we can not do the job
with 8 or even 9, we need 214,000 reindeer. This increases the weight,
not even counting the sleigh, to 353,430 tons. Again for comparison this
is 4 times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth 2.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air
resistance. This will heat the reindeer in the same manner as a
spacecraft re-entering the earth+s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer
will absorb 14.2 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In
short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the
next pair of reindeer, and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.
The entire team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousands of a second.
Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06
times the force of gravity. A 300 pound Santa would be pinned to the
back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

Old Digital Engineers

That Darn Oops Button

Haven't you always wanted a button labeled 'oops' on your keyboard for those
occasions where 1 microsecond after posting something to sci.electronics.repair
(or a more juicy newsgroups), you realized how stupid it was?

Maybe the 'Oops' button would create a market for those no-longer-needed
'printer buffers'??? :-) Darn, that great an idea shouldn't be in a publicly
accessible document. Oops!

(From: Mr Fixit (mrfixit@cyberhighway.net).)

I believe I could retire in style if I can design a ad-on computer button
labeled 'Oops'. It would be wired to a small, but high powered electronic
box that would go in-line at the modem connection.

Once in place, we usenet users would have a means of dealing with that
dreaded situation when we push the 'post' button at the same instant we
realize that we shouldn't have pushed it. A quick slap on the 'oops' button
would instantly send a high powered jolt down the phone line where it would
catch up to the inadvertently sent message and blow it to smitherines, like
a Patriot missile intercepting a Scud.

I know I would make regular use of it, as well as Sam, Joe and countless
others on this NG alone. And just think of how many NG's there are with
their own regretful posters!

Of course, I would have to SPAM all of the NG's to get the word out and
start my $millions rolling in. But, knowing me I would probably have second
thoughts about being a SPAMMER the instant I push the 'post' button. My
knee-jerk reaction would undoubtably be to slap the new prototype 'oops'
button on my computer and blast my own SPAM before it could be delivered.
The end result being that I would be the only one on usenet with this
powerful technology-turned personal toy.

Never mind that this would be grossly unfair to everyone else, the cold
reality would be that I just blasted away my comfortable retirement.

Transformer Design - Tomato Launcher

This is actually part of a long thread on sci.electronics.design (much of it
between Chuck Parsons and Winfield Hill) but I got tired of extracting and
formatting all the relevant stuff!

(From: Chuck Parsons (Chuck@CatenaryScientific.com).)

Well there is nothing I like better than finding the right intuitive model fo
something. Intuition is so fast if you can keep out the bad intuition. Many
thanks for helping me lay another block in my EE foundation I hope others
benefited as well.

While mulling this over last night I tried to come up with a circuit that
explored both converters. I came up with a hybrid design that uses both
converters in a single transformer. First though I needed a reason for building
it, this is what I came up with. I don't claim that the design is particularly
good I was just trying to bring some of the issues in to play. I invite anyone
who cares to to disparage or (better) improve the designs.

Our story begins many years ago (at least for some of us) when all of us in
the sci.electronics.design gang happened to be about 16. Old enough to drive,
but young enough that the police might still take us too our parents instead
of jail.

Those jerks in alt.pdf_not_gif.big_binaries.wannabies.geese. are getting
their due at the hands of our car mounted linear induction motor tomato
launcher. It launches 1kg tomatoes. 1 kg tomatoes are rather large, but we
have gardening expertise here in sci.electronics and have no trouble procuring
our superior ammunition. I have grown 1.1kg tomatoes, and last summer was
hours away from picking 4 even larger ones when those &%#@*
alt.pdf_not_gif.big_binaries.wannabies GEESE got them.

Careful, but messy, testing has determined that 30 meter per second (108 kph
or 67 mph) launch speeds are possible without PPF ( premature projectile
fragmentation) requiring another trip to the car wash. Naturally we want to
come as close to this as possible without exceeding it. The energy of a 1kg
projectile traveling at 30 mps is 450 Joules. Our launcher has an impressive
45% efficiency (of course we designed it!) so a launch requires 1000 Joules of
energy. We store this energy in 220,000 uF of capacitance at 100 Volts. the
caps are discharged all the way to 30 volts during firing, so only 1100 Joules
of energy storage is needed to deliver 1000 Joules. Testing has also shown
that for small variations in the linear motor input voltage the variation in
projectile speed is reasonably linearly related to the voltage variation.

Generation 1 used a simple 20 watt 100 kHz PWM flyback design to generate the
100 volts from the car battery. The ferrite needs to store 200 uJ on each
pulse. A ferrite capable of storing 400uJ was chosen to avoid saturation at
high input voltages. This design worked great. The 100 volts was accurate
assuring reproducible launches whether or not we had the car revving for get
away or had the battery just about dead after a long day of field trials. I
sketch it here:

Unfortunately after a few successful raids the alters took advantage of the 50
second recharge time to close and return fire from close range.

Generation 2 then using the same ferrite modified the design to use forward
conversion allowing an average 200 watts of power transfer and a much quicker
5 second reload time, which is about how long it took Win to pass up those
tomatoes from the back seat through the sun roof anyway.

+---+ +----|>|-------+-------+-----o 100 V
Vin 10-15 volts o---------+ ||( _|_ | | |
)||( - | _|_ |
)||( | .22 F --- |
)||( | | |
+----+----+ ||( | _|_ |
30 V | | +--------+ - |
MOSFET .|---+ _|_ |
||
We had to add a snubber because now the magnetization flux is just being dumped
into the mosfet at the end of every cycle. Since we are using the same
transformer and frequency as well as maximum duty cycle this energy amounts to
just the 20 watts of the flyback converter.

This produced a glorious victory over the alters, plastering them at close
range as they closed with their basket of 100 gram wormy tomatoes.

However, there were problems. The Generation 1 circuit could be left on
continuously and preloaded allowing instant reaction to sneak attacks when
getting in the car in the morning. Leaving the Generation 2 circuit on all
night killed the battery, despite nearly 90% efficiency at full load (and
full output voltage).

The efficiency at low loads, or low output voltages is poor. Continuous firing
is possible until the transformer overheats. At full load _and_ output
voltage, the transformer heat load is not bad, but during the output rampup
currents are only limited by the leakage inductance (much lower than the full
winding inductance), winding resistance and MOSFET on resistance. To minimize
the charging time we of course minimized all of these, leading to 100 amp peak
currents. Furthermore changes in the input voltage lead to problems in
figuring range and aiming accurately. Indeed several second shots while racing
away at low gear and high RPMs lead to high battery charging voltages and
embarrassing PPF (premature projectile fragmentation).

Generation 3 is to combine the best features of both designs. (The turns on
the secondary are reduced 10% to ensure the flyback is the only active energy
transfer at full load. This isn't always enough reduction to ensure the
output voltage never exceeds 100 volts, but it is a compromise between
overcharging at high input voltages and slow charging at low input voltages. )

+--+--|>|--------+--------+-----+--o Vout: 100 V
Vin 10-15 volts o-----+ ||( | | | |
)||( +--||--------+ - |
MOSFET .|---+ |
||
In this design the snubber disappears because the magnetization energy is
captured for use in the output flyback. At low output voltage the design
works primarily as forward conversion but at some point the output voltage
equals the input voltage multiplied by the turns ratio and the design
transfers over to pure flyback. We can once again leave the circuit running
continuously. We can get off 10 shots in 50 seconds before the transformer and
mosfets overheat, though the output voltage will then be 90 instead of 100
leading to reduced range. The flyback just has to top off the capacitors so if
we can 15 seconds instead of 5 (but not 50) between shots we can assure a
steady output voltage. The biggest problem is that variation in the input
voltage leads to variations in the amount of time spent in flyback versus
forward conversion. A second problem is that the flyback, moving charge all
the way from ground to 100 volts at the end of the top-off is rather slow.
Basically we would like to extend the period of time in forward conversion but
we have to adjust the winding turns so that at maximum input voltage the
forward conversion output voltage is less than the desired Vout. We can
increase the amount of work done in forward conversion as follows,
simultaneously greatly improving the charge delivery of the flyback, by giving
it a slower rampdown.

Parts Replacement

"Where can I get the microprocessor or flyback or CRT or mainboard or 'most
expensive part' because I think THAT must be the problem".

(From: David J. Pittella (ddc_pitt@ix.netcom.com).)

I frequently read or overhear discussions about the repair of products that are
controlled by a microprocessor or microcontroller and wonder why technicians
are always trying to replace these, typically prior to any testing or
troubleshooting?

I wonder if they will ever believe that these devices are typically very
reliable and that the lack of a proper voltage, or a failed or dirty sensor or
switch be the real fault?

New troubleshooting technique:

Replace ALL the biggest chips FIRST, the more pins the better.

If step #1 doesn't resolve the problem, see if there is service literature
available?

If there is no service literature, see if the something called the MAIN
BOARD! Just replace anything that could be a MAIN BOARD - that should fix
the problem!

If steps (1) to (3) don't cure the problem, advise the customer that "parts
are no longer available" or "the cost of repair exceeds the cost of
replacement".

WARNING: DO NOT attempt to use a voltmeter to make simple voltage tests, or
an ohmmeter to possibly check the continuity of the on/off switch!! :-)

Q: What's the difference between a lawyer and a trampoline?
A: You take off your shoes to jump on a trampoline!

Q: What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start!

Q: How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?
A: His lips are moving.

Q: What's the difference between a dead dog and a dead lawyer in the road?
A: There are skid marks in front of the dog.

Q: How many lawyers does it take to roof a house?
A: Depends on how thin you slice them.

Q: Why won't sharks attack lawyers?
A: Professional courtesy.

Q: What do you have when a lawyer is buried up to his neck in sand?
A: Not enough sand.

Q: When lawyers die, why are they buried in a hole 24 feet deep?
A: Because down deep, they are all nice guys!!!!

Q: How do you get a lawyer out of a tree?
A: Cut the rope.

Q: How do you stop a lawyer from drowning?
A: Shoot him before he hits the water.

Q: What is the definition of a shame (as in "that's a shame")?
A: When a bus load of lawyers goes off a cliff.

Q: What is the definition of a "crying shame"?
A: There was an empty seat.

Q: How many lawyers does it take to stop a moving bus?
A: Never enough.

Q: Have you heard about the lawyers word processor?
A: No matter what font you select, everything comes out in fine print.

Q: What's the difference between a porcupine and two lawyers in a Porsche?
A: With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside!

Q: What do you buy a friend graduating from Law School?
A: A lobotomy.

Q: What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?
A: One's a bottom-crawling scum sucker and the other's just a fish.

Q: Hear about the terrorist that hijacked a 747 full of lawyers?
A: He threatened to release one every hour if his demands weren't met.

Q: What does a lawyer and a sperm have in common?
A: Both have about a one in 3 million chance of becoming a human being.

Q: Why is it that many lawyers have broken noses?
A: From chasing parked ambulances.

Q: Where can you find a good lawyer?
A: In the cemetery

Q: What do lawyers use as contraceptives?
A: Their personalities.

Q: What's the difference between a lawyer and a herd of buffalo?
A: The lawyer charges more.

Q: What's the difference between a lawyer and a vampire?
A: A vampire only sucks blood at night.

Q: What is brown and black and looks good on a lawyer?
A: A doberman.

Q: What is the difference between a lawyer and a rooster?
A: When a rooster wakes up in the morning, its primal urge is to cluck
defiance.

Q: How many law professors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Hell, you need 250 just to lobby for the research grant.

Q: Why did the post office recall the new lawyer stamps?
A: Because people could not tell which side to spit on.

Q: Did you hear about the new sushi bar that caters exclusively to lawyers?
A: It's called, Sosumi.

Q: Did you hear about the lawyer from Texas who was so big when he died that
they couldn't find a coffin big enough to hold the body?
A: They gave him an enema and buried him in a shoe box.

Q: Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, an honest lawyer, and an old drunk are walking
down the street together when they simultaneously spot a hundred dollar
bill. Who gets it?
A: The old drunk, of course, the other three are mythological creatures.

Q: What is the ideal weight of a lawyer?
A: About three pounds, including the urn.

Garage Tools

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as
a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object
we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard
cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes
containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their
holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar
mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that
goes to the rear axle.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board
principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion,
and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future
becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they
can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXY-ACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage
cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (what
wife would think to look in there?) because you can never remember to buy
lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell.

ZIPPO LIGHTER: See oxy-acetylene torch.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month-old Salems from the
sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal
bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your
beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over
the bench grinder.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the
workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and
hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django
Reinhardt."

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have
installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trapping the jack
handle firmly under the front air dam.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2x4: Used for levering a car upward off a
hydraulic jack.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris to see if he has another hydraulic
floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading
mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is
ten times harder than any known drill bit.

TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength
of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to
disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that
inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the
handle.

BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from
car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery
is dead as a door nail, just as you thought.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop
light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not
otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose
is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105mm howitzer
shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the
Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style
paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the
name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power
plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by
hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts
last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds
them off.

Tesla Coil Caps

Just watch out for PCB-laden oil-filled caps.... Those are usually the ones you
find at the junk yard or the surplus place for REAL cheap, big grey cans with
lightning protectors on top, usually labeled something like "1 uF @ 100 kV."
They're extra cheap if they're already leaking!

Just remember, if you come across a pile of drum caps in an abandoned lot in an
industrial section of town - even if the sign on top says "FREE! FREE!" - they
are not good for you. Just Say No to PCBs.

I personally wish that Norm Abrams, host of the New Yankee Workshop, would run
a show for electronics experimenters, something like the New Geek Workshop:

"Today we're going to be making a tesla coil from champagne bottles, a spark
coil from a 53 DeSoto, and this hand-knurled lightning rod. It'll look great
next to my Louis XIV-style marquetry and scrollwork Orgone Cabinet!. But
first, let's talk about Safety Glasses...."

Advertising to Dummies

(I was going to use the 'for' word but then a certain publisher's lawyers
would come complaining.)

(From: Charley S. McCue (csmccue@midusa.net).)

I once spent 15 minutes trying to convince a customer they had not bought a
$20 satellite dish from TV Guide (back when C band was the only option).

(From: Gary Woods (gwoods@wrgb.com).)

That's the ad that I still think is the high-water mark of advertising to
stupid people:

"You're not paying cable fees, because this is not a satellite antenna. It
uses proven RF technology to pick signals RIGHT OUT OF THE AIR!"

People still bought them thinking they'd get cable or something. We had a
copy on the door of the tech shop for a while.

Reminds me of the fellow who offered on a bulk emailer site one million email
addresses for only ten dollars. "Generated by sophisticated random number
technology", they are all guaranteed undeliverable! People actually sent him
orders!

The Hazards of Multimeters

(From: Ed Price (edprice@pacbell.net).)

Let me add my own tale of knowledge gained through stupid experimentation. In
1961, right after I built my Knight Kit VTVM, I was measuring the voltage and
resistance of everything I could find. I eventually found an old "Press" style
flashbulb, about an inch in diameter. I started out on a high Ohms range, and
worked my way down to the 1x range. The lessons I learned involved design of
experiments, resistance testing, chemical reaction of magnesium, optical
transfer of energy and emergency room procedure. Did you know that those old
bulbs had a plastic outer layer which could very effectively fuse to charred
skin?

Dirty Harry Callahan was right; "...when properly used, you can REMOVE the
fingerprints."

Next time (if somebody asks politely), I'll tell you how I got radiation burns
from a pencil.

The Surgeons' Choice

The first surgeon says: "Accountants are the best to operate on because when
you open them up, everything inside is numbered."

The second surgeon says: "Nah, librarians are the best. Everything inside
them is in alphabetical order."

The third responds: "Try electricians, man! Everything inside THEM is color
coded."

The fourth intercedes: "I like engineers...they always understand when you
have a few parts left over at the end."

To which the fifth surgeon, who has been quietly listening to the
conversation, says: "You're all wrong. Lawyers are the easiest. There's no
guts, no heart, no spine and their head and butt are interchangeable."

VCR Only Works Upside-Down

(From: Clifton T. Sharp Jr. (agent150@ml.org).)

Maybe you should reverse the wires to the vertical yoke windings of the TV as
well. :-)

I'll never forget the old 21" round picture tubes and the giant yokes that
went on them; the yokes had quick-disconnect spade terminals which connected
to the chassis through individual wires. When I had a customer with a sense of
humor, or when I worked on my brother's TV, I would first reverse the
horizontal winding wires and "work on some adjustments" while waiting for the
reaction. They'd say "the picture is backwards, look at the text," and I'd
hold my mirror up from behind the set and say, "Looks just fine to me, I can
read it." I'd let them remind me about the mirror image or coax me out from
behind the set, then I'd shut the set off and instead of fixing the horizontal
windings, reverse the vertical. Turning on the set always got "Now it's
upside-down!" at which I would rise and lean over the set from the back, chin
above forehead, and say "Looks okay to me."

A Pound of Electrons, Please!

(From: Clifton T. Sharp Jr. (agent150@spambusters.ml.org).)

Once on a very very bored day, I and a friend decided to compute how long it
would take for a black-and-white TV to shoot a pound of electrons at the
screen. If you ever get so bored that you want to duplicate this entirely
silly exercise:

Take the rest mass of an electron.

Convert from nanopicofemtoattograms (whatever) to pounds.

Invert to find quantity of electrons in a pound.

Determine average beam current of the TV.

Convert amps to coulombs per second.

Divide quantity in (3) by quantity in (5) to determine number of seconds.
Convert to megacenturies.

Tell your friends.

Do what your friends tell you and get a life.

(Anyone who doesn't see how entirely silly this is and posts corrections
to the lousy data should be bolted by aliens to a spaceship and towed
through the galaxy until struck by a pound of cosmic rays.)

In Defense of Fuse Eating Equipment

(From: Frank McNally (emcnally@mail.otenet.gr).)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a TV that eats fuses , most of them
do it at some time , What is wrong is that a non technical person should try
checking his fuses in a TV that eats fuses . When it has eaten one it is
quite likely that it will want to eat another ! and another ! until its
appetite has been quenched.

Just how hard did the TV eat the Fuse - was it just a small nibble or the
fully grown. "I haven't eaten a fuse for god knows how many years." Bite
that left the fuse black and charred.? I have seen Philips TVs that have
eaten fuses down to the Glass tube that surrounds them leaving only metal
caps in the fuse holder. If the fuse doesn't look burnt, like the TV
toasted it before it ate it, the possibility is that the fuse died of old
age and thermal shock before it parted company with its end-caps.

A fuse that, like the one that lost its jacket as well as its cool, and
must have been eaten alive, before it even had time to think about whether
it should holiday in a warm sunny or a cold wintry climate, has definitely
wetted the appetite of even the most expensive piece of equipment.

The Ultimate Toaster

(Frowarded by: Jeff Granito (jmg@repairfaq.org).)

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his
advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in
the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you think this is?"

One advisor, an electrical engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he
said.

The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?"

The advisor: "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program
that reads the darkness knob and quantifies its position to one of 16 shades
of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that
darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values.
Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the
initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would
turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show
you a working prototype."

The second advisor, a software developer, immediately recognized the danger of
such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into
toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is
really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more
sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast
food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A
toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the
future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years."

"With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the
problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into
subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be
repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork
divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled
eggs, hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes."

"The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must
inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we
see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance.
At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to
the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend,
of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece
of toast than to scrambled eggs."

"Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed
that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the
design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we
need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users
don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent
processing is required, too."

"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks
versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product
unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker
is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on
it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v.8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3
should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull
down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook."

"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design
phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the
implementation phase. An Intel Pentium with 48MB of memory, a 1.2GB hard
disk, and a SVGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking,
object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in
GUI, writing the program will be a snap."

The king wisely had the software developer beheaded, and they all lived
happily ever after.

Ten Commandments of Electrical Safety

Navy style, at least. :-)

(From: Gordon S. Hlavenka (nospam@crashelex.com).)

I Beware of the lightning that lurketh in seemingly uncharged capacitors,
lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in an unseamanlike manner
and cause thy hair to stand on end, thereby exceeding regulation length.

II Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to be
opened and thusly tagged, that thy days may be long in this earthly vale.

III Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth and upon which thou
worketh are grounded and thusly tagged, lest they lift thee to radio
frequency potential and causeth thee to radiate with the angels.

IV Tarry thou not amongst those fools that engage in intentional shocks, for
they are not long of this world and are surely unbelievers.

V Take care thou useth the proper method when thou taketh the measure of
high voltage so that thou dost not incinerate both thee and thy test
meter. For verily, though thou has no NSN and can be easily surveyed,
the test meter has one, and as a consequence, bringeth much woe unto thy
supply officer.

VI Take care thou tamperest not with interlocks and safety devices, for this
incurreth the wrath of thy department head and bringeth the fury of thy
commanding officer on thy head.

VII Work thou not on energized equipment without proper procedures, for if
thou dost so, thy shipmates will surely be buying beers for thy widow and
consoling her in certain ways not generally acceptable to thee.

VIII Verily, verily, I say unto thee, never service equipment alone, for
electrical cooking is a slow process, and thou might sizzle in thy own
fat upon a hot circuit for hours on end before thy maker sees fit to end
thy misery and drag thee into his fold.

IX Trifle thee not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou commence
to glow in the dark like a lightning bug and thy wife be frustrated and
have no further use for thee except for thy wages.

X Commit thou to memory all the words of the prophets which are written
down in the 300th chapter of thy Bible which is the "Naval Ships'
Technical Manual", and giveth out with the straight dope and consoleth
thee when thou hast suffered a ream job by thy division LPO.

If Cars were like PCs

(Forwarded by: Cye Landy (clandy@columbus.rr.com).)

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the
computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with
technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars
that got 1000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars
with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new
car.

Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would
just accept this, restart and drive on.

Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your
car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to
re-install the engine.

Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or
"CarNT". But, then you would have to buy more seats.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the Sun, was reliable, 5
times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on 5% of
the roads.

The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced
by a single "general car default" warning light.

New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and
refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle,
turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand
McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need
them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately
cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 percent or more. Moreover,
GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.

Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to
drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the
same manner as the old car.

How NOT to Repair a TV

Here's a humorous (hopefully) little story I wanted to share with everyone.

This is about the people on this earth, and my area especially, that think
they can repair stuff without having any clue as to what they are doing.
I'm sure most of you know the type.

It happened that a good ol' boy, we'll call him Bubba, had bought a TV, a
pretty nice Sanyo DS25030 stereo 25", at a pawn shop I do repairs for.
Bubba shortly brought the set back, saying that it quit working. After
some questioning, Bubba admitted to connecting the set to 220V(don't ask me
how - maybe he thought his reception would be twice as good). The set was
in rough condition (more about this follows) and he was told that it may be
scrap, but wanted it looked at anyway. The following is my guess as to how
the set died - the sequence of events is based on the most obvious things
that I found when I looked inside the set. The situations are fictitious -
the result of these fictitious situations, however, is sitting on my shop
floor.

After Bubba finds out that TVs don't particularly like being fed 220 volts
(he was clued in by the loud belch immediately following the feeding), he
decides that he can fix whatever ails it. Now he knows that 'lektric'ty is
bad for you, so he does unplug the set (Safety first, you know!). Now,
instead of finding a 1/4" nut driver or even a socket and ratchet, he uses
an angle grinder to cut open the back of the TV. He finds C006, a 470uF
200V electrolytic (that beer-can lookin' thang), blown open. So being the
resourceful fellow he is, he wraps approx. 12" of bare 24AWG solid wire
around the terminals of the capacitor (about 10 turns) and uses Scotch tape
to hold it in place, since he thinks that this part is kinda unnecessary
anyway. He plugs the set back in (to 110V this time - he did learn a
little), and the main 4A line fuse opens. Again, being the astute
repairman, he wraps the fuse with a foil gum wrapper (works ev'ry time!).
After plugging the set back in, resistor R001 opens (Why don't this dang
thang work?). There are no outward signs that the resistor is open, so
Bubba gets discouraged (dang cheap crap TV). He decides he's gonna take it
back and claim it's a junk TV. It's a good thing he does, because it
probably saves the trailer, outhouse, and dog-lot from burning down.

Well, I picked the TV up yesterday at the pawn shop. The shop owner told
me that I didn't need to try to fix it; he was giving it to me. In his
exact words, "Anyone stupid enough to open a TV with a grinder is too
stupid to own a television anyway." :-)

Some Mice are Just Plain Stupid

(Forwarded by: Andre (A.J.De-Guerin@herts.ac.uk).)
Some tech was doing a post mortem on a blown TV chassis (fuse kept blowing.)
Examined further, found a dead mouse with its teeth firmly embedded in the
mains lead to the switch. Its tail was shorting to ground, hence instantly
smoked fuses. Tech extracted mouse, set worked OK.

Mouse demonstrated its own stupidity by:

Managing to get into a TV without using proper tools (i.e. its teeth).

Doing this while set was energized.

Chewing the mains HOT lead when it could have munched any of 22 other
cables happily without getting fried.

Not taking proper electrical safety precautions.

Not using established repair techniques (e.g. using own body as a test
probe with no series resistor ).

Worst Techs Ever - Take Your Pick

(From: Bill Rosen (brosen@iglou.com).)

By far the worst "tech" I even saw was when I was in the military some thirty
something years ago. He would "troubleshoot" boxes that popped circuit
breakers (or blew fuses) by holding in the circuit breaker (or putting in a
larger fuse) until something smoked and then marking it for "depot" repair. He
was great at repairing items that used tubes. He just replaced every tube. It
fixed the problem 95 percent of the time. He got transferred at last and I
think someone finally got w1
(From: Vince, AA9TL (hamvak@mindspring.com).)

Made him a COOK??? This kinda guy would probably try everything in the pot
until he found something that WOULDN'T kill you

(From: Brad Thompson (Brad_Thompson@pop.valley.net).)

During a hitch at Sears as a TV tech, I noted an absence of Phillips
screwdrivers. When I borrowed one from the senior tech, he informed
me that I should get my own and stash them away where "Bob", another
tech, (his real name) couldn't find them.

Apparently, when "Bob" needed a scratch awl or a flat-bladed screwdriver, he'd
simply find a Phillips and spend a few minutes at the bench grinder....

"Bob" also once installed a new refrigerator and an icemaker at a customer's
house, using only one of two possible screws to fasten the icemaker's "vampire
tap" to the cold water line. When the customer returned a few hours later, he
found six inches of water in the basement - "Bob's" handiwork had failed.

I wonder what "Bob" does for work today.... He's probably an HMO exec. :-)

(From: Alan Peterman (alp@jps.net).)

For reasons I could never fathom, our AVIONICS shop hired this fellow right out
of avionics school. He darn near had to shown which end of the soldering iron
to hold.

He once used silicon GLUE, instead of silicon GREASE to pack an aileron servo.
That was a fun test flight - I happened to be on it, and when I engaged the
autopilot, it promptly blew the circuit breakers - luckily the clutches did
their job so we could hand fly the plane.

Then there was the time he wired the lights in a new radio for 12 volts, and
put it into a 24 volt plane. Ah well..

Of course we had one mechanic in the power plane shop who often came in
somewhat hung over - he forgot to safety wire an oil drain plug on a heart
surgeon's plane. Luckily, the plane was a twin so when the plug came off in
flight, the doctor was able to land the plane. The shop bought and installed
a new engine for him - $18,000 if I remember right.

If you knew the general level of aviation repairmen, you'd be way less happy
when flying..

(From: Tobi Scags (tartan54@hotspam.com).)

Just as well he was a heart surgeon, then. He could restart his own when that
engine went bang! :)

(From: BillK2 (billk2@aol.com).)

When I started in an engine overhaul shop, airplane yet, all seven of the
clamshell balancing machines were down hard. Seems like this fellow replaced
the 1/4 amp fuse with a 25 amp fuse in all the controllers. Servos make
terrible fuses. A couple of years later I left. Six months after that I got
a call from the fellow to see if I had his multimeter. He didn't use it much.

Airplane Maintenance

WARNING: Don't read if you fly a lot. :-)

(From: Chris (news@zabadak.globalnet.co.uk).)

Here are some apparently actual maintenance complaints submitted by US
Air Force pilots and the replies from the maintenance crews. \223Squawks\224
are problem listings that pilots generally leave for maintenance crews.

Problem: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
Signed Off: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

Problem: Test flight OK, except autoland very rough.
Signed Off: Autoland not installed on this aircraft.

The Dark Sucker Theory and the Truth About Light Bulbs

For years, it has been believed that electric bulbs emit light, but recent
information has proved otherwise. Electric bulbs don't emit light; they suck
dark. Thus, we call these bulbs Dark Suckers.

The Dark Sucker Theory and the existence of dark suckers prove that dark has
mass and is heavier than light.

First, the basis of the Dark Sucker Theory is that electric bulbs suck
dark. For example, take the Dark Sucker in the room you are in. There is much
less dark right next to it than there is elsewhere. The larger the Dark
Sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark. Dark Suckers in the parking lot
have a much greater capacity to suck dark than the ones in this room. So with
all things, Dark Suckers don't last forever. Once they are full of dark, they
can no longer suck - just like a vacuum cleaner does if you forget to change
the bag. This is proven by the dark spot on a full Dark Sucker. Then the Dark
Sucker quits working.

A candle is a primitive Dark Sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You can
see that after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the dark
that has been sucked into it. If you put a pencil next to the wick of an
operating candle, it will turn black. This is because it got in the way of
the dark flowing into the candle. One of the disadvantages of these primitive
Dark Suckers is their limited range.

There are also portable Dark Suckers. In these, the bulbs can't handle all the
dark by themselves and must be aided by a Dark Storage Unit. When the Dark
Storage Unit is full, it must be either emptied or replaced before the portable
Dark Sucker can operate again.

Dark has mass. When dark goes into a Dark Sucker, friction from the mass
generates heat. Thus, it is not wise to touch an operating Dark Sucker.

Candles present a special problem as the mass must travel into a solid wick
instead of through clear glass. This generates a great amount of heat and
therefore it's not wise to touch an operating candle.

Also, dark is heavier than light. If you were to swim just below the surface
of the lake, you would see a lot of light. If you were to slowly swim deeper
and deeper, you would notice it getting darker and darker. When you get really
deep, you would be in total darkness. This is because the heavier dark sinks
to the bottom of the lake and the lighter light floats at the top. The is why
it is called light.

Finally, we must prove that dark is faster than light. If you were to stand in
a lit room in front of a closed, dark closet, and slowly opened the closet
door, you would see the light slowly enter the closet. But since dark is so
fast, you would not be able to see the dark leave the closet.

So next time you see an electric bulb, remember: It's really a Dark Sucker!

The Microsoft Phone

I heard that the current version only allows you to TALK, and the speaker
functionality to HEAR the other party is planned for Phone2000.

Also, the 7,9,5,6,3,4,2,0 and * keys do not work, but Microsoft has a special
support phone number: 888-888-8888.

The phone is currently available to beta testers, but you can only call other
people with the same build of phone that you have, and each call is limited to
7 seconds, including the time while the phone is ringing.

There is a similar product that works with Linux, the sound quality rivals
that of $5,000 audio systems, the range of the cordless model is 20 miles, and
it stores the entire phone directory locally. However, you need to hardcode
the number you are calling into the phone's microcode (in assembler), then
recompile it's kernel.

IBM will have their own version shortly, it's just the Microsoft phone in a
grey case, but they've also disables the # key, to distinguish it from the
Microsoft version.

(From: David Richards (dr@ripco.com).)

Then there's the OpenBSD phone, which works just like the Linux phone except
it eliminates the 42 assorted buffer overflows and 'rootshell' holes (which
allow anybody to bill international calls to your phone) and is specifically
designed to link against a MD5 triple-DES PGP encryption module that you can
only download from a server in Argentina. :-)

Oh, and instead of recompiling your kernel, a runtime LKM holds the number to
be dialed...

How to Cure a Parrot with a Bad Attitude

(Forwarded by: Redgie (RodzSkolar@aol.com).)

David received a parrot for his birthday. The parrot was fully grown with a
bad attitude and worse vocabulary. Every other word was an expletive. Those
that weren't expletives, were to say the least, rude.

David tried hard to change the bird's attitude and was constantly saying
polite words, playing soft music, anything he could think of to try and set a
good example...

Nothing worked. He yelled at the bird and the bird yelled back. He shook the
bird and the bird just got more angry and more rude. Finally, in a moment of
desperation, David put the parrot in the freezer.

For a few moments he heard the bird squawk and kick and scream - then
suddenly, there was quiet. Not a sound for half a minute.

David was frightened that he might have hurt the bird and quickly opened the
freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto David's extended arm and
said, "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I
will endeavor at once to correct my behavior. I really am truly sorry and beg
your forgiveness."

David was astonished at the bird's change in attitude and was about to ask
what had made such a dramatic change when the parrot continued,

One Frustrated Frog

(Forwarded by: Larry Steckler (Lartronics@aol.com)

A guy is taking a walk and sees a frog on the side of the road. As he comes
closer, the frog starts to talk. 'Kiss me and I will turn into a princess.'
The guy picks the frog up and puts it in his pocket.

The frog starts shouting, 'Hey! Didn't you hear me? I'm a Princess. Just kiss
me and I will be yours.' The guy takes the frog out of his pocket and smiles
at it and puts it back.

The frog is really frustrated. 'I don't get it. Why won't you kiss me? I will
turn into a beautiful princess and do anything you ask.'

The guy says, 'Look, I'm a computer geek. I don't have time for girls. But a
talking frog is cool!'

Does anyone have recommendations or schematic diagrams that would
provide a conversion for high voltage/low current TO low voltage/
high current as stated above?

Thanks!"

No problem. We have one almost like that where I work (ratings are only
slightly different). However, here is the description:

We use SCRs because we are connected to an existing AC power supply and we
can let the external supply commutate the SCRs. If you don't have an
external AC supply, you will need to use power MOSFETS, IGBTs or GTOs. In
our application, each SCR is in an arrangement of 360 devices connected
in series parallel (180 series/2 parallel) with the requisite firing pulse
isolation transformers (720), RC snubbers (2,160), voltage breakover firing
circuits (4,320) and dI/dt limiting series reactors (1,980). Firing pulses
come from a custom GE control system which occupies three 3' wide cabinets.
From the transformers, we go into our 230 kV AC bus. We have filters on
the AC bus to remove the harmonics created by the conversion process.
These filters consist of air core (but oil cooled) reactors and a whole
wack of capacitors. These filters occupy approx 300 square meters of space
in the switchyard.

After the 230 kV bus, we step the power down to 25 kV, then we have another
transformer that goes 25 kV to 240 V with a grounded center tap.

If you would like photocopies of our design drawings, please send me five (5)
empty 4 drawer filing cabinets and $10,000 to cover copying and shipping. :)

Q1. Your management has handed you a set of design specifications which
violate all known laws of physics, including several from the "Star Trek"
universe. What should you do?

A1. Lights, lots of blinky lights and special effects, incorporate lasers if
need be, and sound you need lots of sound (every time you push a button it
beeps) and the power supply has got to hum like it's sucking down 5,000 amps.

Q2. Supplier A offers components which are technically superior and
available at half the cost of supplier B's, but supplier B gives you better
T-shirts. Whose party do you try to crash at Comdex?

A2. Both of them, because the one with the more expensive parts and
T-shirts will have better liquor, and the ones with the cheaper parts might
have free samples, maybe some cheap liquor to get you started ;)

Q3. Through basically clumsy application of a test probe and an unfortunate
error regarding which terminal was the 400V supply, you have destroyed a
prototype representing 300 man-months of effort and an R&D budget equal to
that of some developing nations. Who should you blame this on, and how?

A3. The same people who are conspiring to sell the public short life
light bulbs.

Q4. List, in descending order of generated volume, the top 5 components in
terms of producing the most smoke when incorrectly connected.

Battery Powered Human

So, how many AA batteries would it take to power a standard adult human for
one day?

(From: Ben Gebeau (bengebeau@hotmail.com).)

A Manganese/Alkaline AA cell it rated at about 2.4 AH. If we assume 1.5 volts
average this gives approximately 3.6 watt hours (slightly optimistic). Since
there are 3,600 seconds in an hour this is equivalent to 12,960 Joules.

A human consumes about 2,000 calories/day. A dietician calorie is equal to
1,000 engineering calories. A calorie is equal to 4.2 Joules. Therefore this
is equivalent to 2,000 * 1,000 * 4.2 = 8.4 * 10E6 Joules per day.

Dividing one by the other you will need about 648 AA cells to power a human
for one day.

This assumes that the power from the AA cell will go through the same
inefficiencies as the chemical processes in a human. (A human runs at about
20% efficiency chemical energy to mechanical energy). If we can circumvent
this inefficiency we would only need 20% of this number of cells - say 130
cells.

Cooking Versus Engineering

In my month+ of unemployment, I've been keeping busy around the house between
the occasional interviews or lead followup. One of the things that has been
filling my time is cooking.

I'm not a pro-chef, but I believe it is the result of a 'Transferrable Skill'
of Electronics.

Let's compare...

Baking cookies Assembling a circuit
--------------------------------------------------------------------
First get a recipe First get a schematic
then round up ingredients then round up components
Mix ingredients Bend and cut leads, etch PCB, etc.
Bake Solder
Enjoy Enjoy!

(From: Sam)

The true engineer will insist on NIH - Not Invented Here - and do their own
design. Likewise, the true chef will create his/her own recipe for each batch
of cookies!

(From: Robert Hancock (hancockr@home.com).)

Not to mention that in both activities, you can tell you screwed up by all
the smoke and the bad smell. :-)

Sometimes it DOES take a Rocket Scientist

(Source unknown, forwarded by Jeff Gronito (jmg@repairfaq.org).)

Scientists at NASA have developed a gun built specifically to launch
dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the
space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea is to
simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test
the strength of the windshields. British engineers heard about the gun
and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed
trains. Arrangements were made. But when the gun was fired, the
engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel,
crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, crashed
through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and
embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin. Horrified Britons sent
NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of
the windshield, and begged the U.S. scientists for suggestions. NASA's
response was just one sentence, "Thaw the chicken."

The Ultimate in New and Improved Speaker Cable!

(From Steve Roberts (osteven@akrobiz.com).)

We here at Infinite Audio have a announcement of our new product line,
speaker cables for the wickedly rich.

First of all, our new Dark Optical Speaker Cable:
Tired of shot noise and 1/F noise interfering with your quiet passages?
Our new dark cable relies on the fact that the speed of darkness is indeed
faster then the speed of light. Our cable converts your amp output to
light, thus when there is no audio, there is dark, to quickly sweep away
light noise, long before it can start. $1995 a foot, polishing and
termination extra.

Second is our new Blumlein Series Speaker Cable: We use a second mirror
cable to add capacitance in parallel with the existing cable, then just when
you need it for those splendid tweeter blowing highs or that extra megawatt of
base, our patented superswitch RCA Tee connector/switch takes the stored
energy in your cable and uses it to its maximum by converting from series to
parallel. Superswitch's patented tin plating makes the switching decisions
far faster then any solid state device could. By using our short pulse energy
techniques, you will actually be able to see your tweeter diaphragms move,
and move faster. 2300$ a foot, exclusive licensing and secrecy agreement
required. Inquire today about our boosted storage version for class D PWM
amps!

Finally, Cryocord, our revolutionary new cable for home theater
installs. Cryocord consists of a 99.9% pure copper core zip cord plated
with 14 karat gold then dipped with a layer of of our patented mercury
superconductor material. This core is then wrapped with 20 turns of our
super low leakage kraft paper insulator and shoved down a long piece of
large diameter glass tubing which is ringed by a another silver plated
glass tube with a vacuum in it, thus preventing loss of your precious audio
signal by the dreaded permittivity and resistivity of dry air. Copious
quantities of liquid nitrogen from a 16 meter long 3 meter diameter tank on
a semi truck are then pumped through the cable, insuring that your amps see
a zero ohm, zero parasitic cable straight to your speakers. Each speaker
has its own glasswork, thus greatly reducing crosstalk. Note: If you need to
move a speaker, please schedule a visit from Horatio, our friendly
glassblower two to three months before you need to move the speaker.
Pricing available on request, please bring you current rating in Whos Who
and Your listing in Standard and Poor's along with some stock certificates
with intact coupons before ordering. Remember with our Dewer covered cables,
you can brag about being hollow state through your system!

Seriously, $7K for a chunk of pink pre-soldered ribbon cable with cheap
shrink and Far East RCA plugs! Man, am I in the wrong business!!!!! They
didn't even bother to make every other strand a ground to reduce crosstalk. ;-)
And, they forgot the silver solder for better conductivity.

The Technology of Startrek

Some of my observations, in no particular order:

Life and death are a binary process - with one quick low cost test using
the Tricorder, the Doc will know if the patient will survive and if not, down
to the microsecond when death will occur, unless (1) there is a stasis
chamber handy or (2) some alien technology is available.

It is generally possible to duck the 24th century hand weapon. I recommend
a 1930's vintage submachine gun if you have a choice.

Starship weapons couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and targeting
servo systems are totally useless.

Diagnostics are guaranteed to determine everything there is about the
ship's systems. The remedy will always involve improving the efficiency
of something.

Computer backups aren't used any more frequently in the 24th century than
our own.

The concept of the 'copy' and 'cp' command was lost sometime after the
breakup of Microsoft.

Somehow, it is possible to send an entire person (real or holographic)
through an alien comm link or wormhole that won't even pass a short audio
fragment intact.

The Holodeck safety systems can somehow be disabled by the holographic
characters. Somehow, this is the first thing to happen in a crisis.

The Transporter acts as a high resolution 3-D fax XOR a matter transfer
device depending the script's needs.

The Enterprise crew will fail to attack a knowingly hostile alien ship
at point-blank range that everyone in the audience knows should be vaporized
instantly if the rest of the plot would be nullified by its destruction
(e.g., the Borg sphere in "First Contact").

If God were an Engineer

I (Sam) must note that I firmly believe in Darwinian evolution as the basis
for all life on Earth. However, much of the structure of DNA might just be
consistent with creationism if God were an engineer:

Considering the tight (but not unusual) schedule of 6 days for the
"Earth Project", any resourceful engineer must do whatever it takes.
Note that even for God, I do suspect that the 6 day goal was just a bit
optimistic and with the usual delays, it probably did in fact stretch
to 3 or 4 billion years in schedule overruns as is typical in these cases.

Any seasoned engineer, having outgrown the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome
will always attempt to reuse whatever can be reused. Programmers take
their old programs and rework them; computer designers base new products
on those that have come before. Why should Life be any different? When
assigned to create, say, a Better Bug, one should always start with a
success story like the cockroach and just make minor modifications (another
thing all Engineers know is to change as little possible between revisions).
Shorten a leg, lengthen a mouth part, tinker with their mating call, etc.,
based on all the considerable stack of problem report forms collected over
a few billion years.

In the case of Man, being quite complex after all, even if not quite as
complex as everyone thought a little while ago, any approach that saves
time would be beneficial. So the overworked Engineer would download the
best features (in their opinion, lacking realistic input from the Marketing
Department or Management, "No chance, adding 2 additional arms would blow the
project schedule and budget!") of mice and monkeys and just add the necessary
DNA to combine them as quickly as possible. Note that during this process,
its not surprising at all that some unfortunate defects (bugs?) have crept
into the DNA. And, what about all that junk DNA? Any software programmer
knows that when writing a new program, it is expedient to include all the
subroutines ever likely to be used - computer memory is cheap but trying to
figure out exactly what will be needed ahead of time takes too much time.
However, much of that code never actually gets used and ends up in this case
as what our greatest minds have declared to be filler. (But, some small
amount could also be comment statements!) So, it's not unexpected that Man
has only about twice as many genes as a fruit fly. However, if an ear of
corn really does have about the same number of genes as Man, some cost
reduction should certainly be possible (for the corn at least).

The dinosaurs were one of those Marketing experiments that wasn't entirely
successful and the product line had to be cut in conjunction with a
down-sizing. Same for wooly mammoths. These had both been pushed
over the considerable objections of the Engineering Department unworkable
and inefficient and it was thus quite amazing they lasted as long as they did.
Insects, on the other hand, have been one of the best collections of critters
providing a steady return over the eons.......

So, if God were an engineer, one could almost believe in creationism. :)

The Truth About Electric Circuits

(Forwarded: Tom MacIntyre (tmacinty@ns.sympatico.ca).)

Quote from Dave Barry:

"Electricity originates inside clouds. There, it forms into lightning, which
is attracted to the Earth by golfers. After entering the ground, the
electricity hardens into coal, which, when dug up by power companies and
burned in big ovens called 'generators,' turns back into electricity,
where it is transformed by TV sets into commercials for beer, which passes
through the consumers and back into the ground, thus completing what is known
as a 'circuit.'"

More Takes on Comprehending Engineers

(Forwarded by: Dave Carpenter (voicebox@dnai.com).)

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing God.
One said, "God is a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the
joints." Another said, "No, God is an electrical engineer. The
nervous systems has many thousands of electrical connections." The
last said, "Actually, God is a civil engineer. Who else would run a
sewage pipeline through a recreation area?"

A priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to be guillotined. The
priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing
happens. He declares that he's been saved by divine intervention, so
he's let go.

The lawyer is put on the block, and again the rope doesn't release
the blade. He claims he can't be executed twice for the same crime
and he is set free too.

They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine. As he
looks up at the release mechanism, he says, "Wait a minute, I see
your problem..."

There once was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all
things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30
years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted
him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with
one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything
and everyone else to get the machine fixed, but to no avail. In
desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so
many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the
challenge.

He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he
marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine
and proudly stated, "This is where your problem is". The part was
replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received
a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded
an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:

One chalk mark: $1.

Knowing where to put it: $49,999.

It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

(A common variation on this one is that the "X" marked where to smack the
machine with a big hammer. --- Sam)

The Top 10 Things Engineering School Didn't Teach

#10. There are at least 10 types of capacitors.
#9. Theory tells you how a circuit works, not why it does not work.
#8. Not everything works according to the specs in the data book.
#7. Anything practical you learn will be obsolete before you use it,
except the complex math, which you will never use.
#6. Always try to fix the hardware with software.
#5. Engineering is like having an 8 a.m. class and a late afternoon lab
every day for the rest of your life.
#4. Overtime pay? What overtime pay?
#3. Managers, not engineers, rule the world.
#2. If you like junk food, caffeine and all-nighters, go into software.
#1. Dilbert is a documentary.

Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.
Scientists think that the real world approximates equations.
Mathematicians are unable to make the connection...

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a
particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with
these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!"
The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"
The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word
with him."

"Hi George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather
slow, aren't they?"

The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind
fire fighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire
last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group
was silent for a moment.

The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer
for them tonight."

The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my
ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up
against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall.

Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they
were half the previous distance apart.

A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will
the girls and boys meet?"

The mathematician said, "Never".

The physicist said, "In an infinite amount of time."

The engineer said, "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close
enough for all practical purposes."

How to make a perpetual motion machine

(Portions from: Stephen Shaw (xstephenx@apple2.org.za).)

The only known way to make a perpetual motion machine is with a cat and a
slice of buttered toast. Buttered toast always lands face down when dropped.
A cat always lands on its feet when dropped. Therefore, if you tie a slice
of buttered toast face up on the cats back you will have a (hovering)
perpetual motion machine as both items try to land on their respective
correct positions.

The greatest minds pondering the secrets of the Universe have been unable
to explain away the violation of laws of conservation of energy but as "they"
say: "If it works, use it!" :)

(From: Duke McMullan, N5GAX (DukeMc@mail.com).)

It's a nice idea, but it doesn't work. Evidently the spin states of the
bread/cat dipole are unresolved, so it spins in a superposition of clockwise
and counterclockwise. All attempts to collapse its collective wave function
to date have extracted no useful energy, have gotten butter all over the
experimenter's clothes, and usually deep claw marks resulted in the
experimenter's arm and hand.

("What did you do to the cat? It looks half dead." --- Schrödinger wife.)

Patient Advice and Consultation

(From: Lance Dyer (d.lance@sk.sympatico.ca).)

Patient's guardian complained of a washed out vision with prominent white
lines across the face when awoken. Secondary complaint of bright red face
when going to sleep as well as turning green or red when channels rolled
over and prominent white lines in the face as well.

Patient history

First Name - F27700.

Second Name - CTC169c-5.

Family - RCA.

Birthday - 1993 week 34.

Age - approximately 8 years.

Consent for treatment signed by guardian.

Diagnosis

9:30 am:

Upon initial diagnosis found patient to be suffering from a malfunction at
the junction of the E-C of q2906 luminance buffer. Junction was shorted.

Action taken:

9:45 am:

Patient was immediately scheduled for transistor-ectomy to remove the failed
component. Solder pads were cauterized with hot iron and excess fluid
removed with sterile solder wick gauze. Diseased part was skillfully
replace with donor transistor. Pads were recauterized and an antiseptic
60/40 solder was placed over joints for strength and protection.

Patient Status

9:50 am:

Patient awoke from operation with normal vision and all vital signs checked
normal and within acceptable parameters.

Patient transferred to intensive care for monitoring:

10:20 am:

Patient went into arrest. Face flashed, shrunk in height and died. Attempt
to restart patient with power button failed. Unit unplugged and expletives
expressed to the corpse. Removed guts and began examination again. Found
same malfunction at the junction. Applied power to patient to check vital
signs and patient was alive with washed out white face and lines. Patient
had relapsed. Repeated transistor-ectomy with another donor transistor,
checked vital still normal.

5:30 pm:

Left to go golfing for the day. Patient was still stable at this time.

Would like a consultation and second opinions on whether or not this patient has:

An incurable disease of an intermittently shorting picture tube causing
cancer of the buffer.

A virus or leprosy of the luminance buffer that is attacking it at random.

Sorry my HMO or Health Care provider will not pay for consultation fees but
your input is greatly appreciated.

Mental Calculation in the Service Shop

(From: Jerry Greenberg (jerryg50@hotmail.com).)

The benefit is to have a good idea of what your answer is going to be.

This is especially true in calculation your customer's reaction when you
tell him the bad news, and how much it is going to cost him! You then
square that factor, and convert it to the distance that will be required
between you and him. Just make sure that you have a very wide service
counter between you and him to start with!

The width of the service counter should be at least 1-1/2 his arm
length plus 12% of his height. You should be standing at a distance of
about 30% more then the sum of his blood pressure + the other mentioned
factors. Also, it is important that you are wearing a very good pair of
high-grip running shoes, shorts, and a tee-shirt. A good non-slip
coating on the bottom of the running shoe soles would also be a good
idea. There should be a clear path between you and the opposite
direction from him.

The System Administrator

(With minor changes, the following applies to many in the IT community
other than system administrators.)

This is the individual (usually a human being but perhaps not always) who
runs the computer system or ISP you use. They are all alike. Pimply-faced
teenagers or if older than 19, pimply-faced teenager wannabees who have never
grown up. They have absolute power over their kingdom, whether it's a unix,
linux, VMS, or Win NT system, or server farm. This is something not found
in many other professions or even most nation states.

Their domain will be an office or cubical with at least 4 of the fastest
computers (not accessible to "users") with the best flat panel LCD
monitors currently available. If asked a question, the
reply will not be a complete sentence or even in English but some obscure
technospeak designed to be impossible to understand.
When asked to clarify, the response is likely to be a similar
sentence fragment selected to indicate that anyone with intelligence greater
than that of a typical carrot should have understood the first time. Very
often, the first attempt to fix something will not work but when told this,
they will never admit the possibility of having made a mistake but will just
try something else that doesn't work. Only after several aborted attempts
obviously becoming increasingly annoyed at having to cater to a mere mortal,
will the concept of actually testing what was done enter their mind. And
then, it will somehow have been the user's fault even if protections and
variables in 17 locations which could be accessed only by the Sysadmin
with root privilages for the Universe had to be changed. That is, if
they can take time out from playing Doom to actually respond to questions.....

Now, if one attempts to get something corrected via email or (gasp!)
phone, the scenario is roughly similar, except that after utterly failing
to solve the problem after not trying too hard, and having much more
important affairs to attend to (see above), they will simply direct
your service tag ID into their kill file or put any calls from you on
indefinite hold, and then ignore any future requests.

My apologies to those system administrators who are actually real
human beings. :)

Reward Offered

(From a posting on the USENET newsgroup sci.electronics.repair by
Bob Parker.)

A reward of 500 microfarads is offered for information leading to the arrest
of Hopalong Capacity. This unrectified criminal escaped from a Weston
Primary cell, where he had been Clamped in Ions awaiting the Gauss chamber.

He is charged with the induction of an 18 turn Coil named Milli Henry, who
was found Choked and robbed of valuable Joules. He is armed with a Carbon
Rod and is a Potential killer.

Hopalong Capacity is also charged with driving a DC motor over the
Wheatstone bridge and refusing to let the Band Pass. If encountered he may
offer Series Resistance.

The Electromotive Force spent the night searching for him in the Magnetic
Field where he had gone to Earth. They had no success and believed Capacity
returned Ohm via a Short Circuit. He was last seen, riding a Kilocycle with
his friend, Eddy Current, who was playing "Ohm on the Range" on his
Harmonic.

A Guide to Abacus Repair

"My abacus, the most advanced computing device known to mankind, is damaged.
What do I need to repair such a highly sophisticated device ?
Please help!"

(From: Jeff Liebermann (jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us).)

You forgot to specify the maker, model, and exact mode of failure. In
most cases, the failure is not mechanical but can be attributed to
operator error. However, there are some common problems found in the
common abacus:

Do you have a worm? This is found by running one of the various
worm and virus removal programs. They'll help you spot the holes in
the main frame bored by the worm. Remedial action depends upon the
type of worm. To avoid further infections, please use an anti-worm
cover and scan for worms often.

When did you last reboot your abacus? Simply shaking the abacus
to remove cached numbers often helps with arithmetic errors.

Have you installed all the updates and patches necessary for
efficient operation? While many of these patches may look like
band-aids, cloths pins, hose clamps, sticky goo, and other temporary
contrivances, it's the best that the manufacturers can offer.

Are you running an open source abacus? If so, you may be missing
some dependency or library required to run the abacus. Please inspect
the storage area to insure that everything is properly installed.
Consult your librarian for the missing libraries.

Utilities often interfere with the operation of the abacus. For
example, a bolt on fan, cell phone, and CCFL lamp will suck all the
power from the abacus. I suggest unloading all your utilities and
accessories and see if that helps.

Do you have sufficient cooling? The high performance abacus can
have considerable friction between the main frame data paths and the
beads. If you overclock the abacus and operate the beads faster than
the manufacturer intended, heating will be an issue.

Hopefully, these pointers will help you repair or mitigate your
undisclosed abacus problem. This is a good thing because when
computers are universally banned as a serious detriment to
productivity, the abacus will then be the primary computing system.

(From: Sam.)

Also note that accidentally installing some of the beads upside-down can
result in subtle errors in lengthy calculations. If the abacus was recently
repaired, this may be the problem. Unfortunately, I do not know how to
determine if the beads are orientated correctly. :)

In the future, please include the builder's name and approximate date of
construction (within a century or two would be adequate). This is the
only way anyone can provide specific repair information.

Elements of Government

(Contributed by: Scott Reames (sreames3@cox.net) with some editing by Sam.)

Governmentium:

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the
heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been
named "Governmentium".

Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and
11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312
particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded
by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium
has no electrons or protons, it is inert. However, it can be detected
as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.
A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to
complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has
a normal half-life of 2 to 6 years, it does not decay, but instead
undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and
deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium's mass will actually
increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become
neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads
some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons
reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is
referred to as "Critical Morass". You will know it when you see it.

Although governmentium has no electrical charge because of the lack of
electrons and protons, all those neutrons, assistant neutrons, deputy
neutrons, and assistant deputy neutrons will have equivalent gravitational
and other nuclear attractions which will cause it to collapse in on itself,
forming neutronium. Enough neutronium will create a black hole, which
by definition allows the escape of NOTHING - no light, no heat, no
energy. Everything in the universe will eventually be sucked in by
the overwhelming gravity of this governmentium induced black hole.

(From: Sam. I'm not sure how the number 312 came about since it is almost
3 times the actual number of particles but that is probably easily explained.)

The Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge Device

BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in
technology: no wires,
no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched
on. It's so easy to use, even a child can operate it.

Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -- even sitting in an
armchair by the fire -- yet it is powerful enough to hold as much
information as a CD-ROM disc.

Here's how it works:

BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper, (
recyclable ), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information.

The pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder
which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence.

Opaque Paper Technology (OPT), allows manufacturers to use both sides
of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs. Experts
are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density;
for now, BOOKS with more information simply use more pages. Each sheet is
scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A
flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.

BOOK may be taken up at any time and used merely by opening it.

BOOK never crashes or requires rebooting, though, like other devices, it
can become damaged if coffee is spilled on it and it becomes unusable if
dropped too many times on a hard surface.
The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move
forward or backward as you wish. Many come with an "index" feature, which
pin-points the exact location of any selected information for instant
retrieval.

An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open BOOK to the exact
place you left it in a previous session -- even if the BOOK has been
closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design standards. Thus, a single BOOKmark
can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous BOOK
markers can be used in a single BOOK if the user wants to store numerous
views at once.

The number is limited only by the number of pages in the BOOK.

You can also make personal notes next to BOOK text entries with optional
programming tools, Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication
Language Style (PENCILS).

Portable, durable, and affordable, BOOK is being hailed as a precursor of
a new entertainment wave. BOOK's appeal seems so certain that thousands of
content creators! have committed to the format.

STUFF

(Sam Goldwasser, August 2009)

STUFF is what makes the Western World go around.

Manufacturers convert raw materials into STUFF.

Consumers use STUFF for various purposes and then send it to land-fills.

Marketers, merchandisers, and advertisers are there to get us to want
new STUFF, more STUFF, better STUFF. Their mission is to convince
us that our old STUFF is no longer adequate for whatever it was intended
to do even if it does exactly the same thing as the new improved STUFF.
Once we have accepted that premise, we ignore all objectivity and view
our old STUFF as decayed, moth eaten, run-down, and rotten, no matter
how perfect it may still be in form and function. At that point we're hooked.

If we buy even as little as a few percent less STUFF per annum than the
producers have been set up to produce, the economy goes into a tailspin
called a recession or depression. Gloom and doom rains down upon us
and the analysts make us feel guilty for not buying enough STUFF
whether we can afford it or not.

The STUFF we own provides some transitory perceived benefit until better STUFF
comes along. We impress our friends and collegues with STUFF. STUFF creates
a Band-Aid to temporarily cover over a miserable job or marriage, or mid-life
crisis, or other situation that needs covering over. Ultimately, like a real
Band-Aid, it deteriorates and falls off, so new fancier STUFF is needed to
reseal the wound.

All the old STUFF has to go somewhere once we have our new STUFF.
But, it's not a good idea to throw STUFF away and send it to the land-fill
early if there's even an extremely unlikely remote infinitesimal chance it
might be useful in the future. So, we hoard STUFF, at least temporarily.

We load up our houses with STUFF and ultimately have to move into bigger houses
to hold all the new and the old STUFF. Room upon room is piled floor to
ceiling with STUFF which we have not uncovered in eons. Some people may
postpone the inevitable move a small amount by renting space for their
overflow STUFF in one, or perferably, several public storage facilities.
An entire industry is based on our need to find space for
STUFF. But once STUFF ends up packed like sardines in those
concrete-walled cubicles, it's destined never to see the light of
day until declared abandoned at the end of time.

Before that inevitable move,
we may have a garage sale or moving sale or put a few items on eBay
or donate a few items to charity, but the truth is that we can't part
with the vast majority of STUFF. Such decisions are simply too traumatic to
make, especially under the pressure of an impending move. Only during
the actual move, do we gain the slightest notion of all the STUFF we
have and wonder why we have it all. But by then it is too late, and
we soon forget about all the STUFF we have but do not use. Box after
box, all simply marked "STUFF" are dutifully transported from the old
house to the new house. We are
destined to repeat the cycle since we underestimated the required
size of the house we've just moved into. STUFF seems to expand whenever
it is moved and the new house can barely hold the STUFF from the old house
despite being twice as large. For those who are rich enough, houses then
become part of the STUFF to be collected. It's simply easier that way
since then there's never a need to uncover the old STUFF and make
difficult decisions.

When we die, our heirs have estate sales (a.k.a. MacMansion-size garage
sales, tag sales, or simply house sales) in which all the STUFF we've
acquired over a lifetime is fought over by total strangers in a hectic
afternoon, so they can fill their houses with STUFF at bargain prices.
To some, bargain STUFF is even more valuable than new STUFF regardless
of what they can afford, or what condition it is in.
What doesn't get sold, goes to the land-fill.

But if not then, in the end, it all goes to the land-fill and the
fundamental purpose of Western society is to convert raw materials
into land-fill.

Duplicates

(This is sort of part humor and part philosophy.)

While out caving, you stumble across a large alien machine, clearly in
mint condition and active (as there is a low hum emanating from somewhere
within). You know it's of alien manufacture because there is a
sticker that says: "Made on Terra #4, Proxima Centuri, SD 5A6.3G4.P3". :)
After reading the instructions manual, conveniently translated into
the poor English common with foreign-made equipment (and base 10),
it's possible to deduce its purpose and function: It is a
Whole Person Replicator (WPR). But the version in front of
you is set for Demo mode only so there are
some, err, restrictions. And there are no instructions on getting it
out of Demo mode. Presumably, that requires an "unlock code" and the
transfer of some large amount of something valuable to the beings on
Terra #4, Proxima Centuri.

The WPR is a walk-in garden-shed-size box with 3 doors labeled I, O1, and O2,
and nothing much else. It must have an internal fusion generator or worm
hole connection to a remote power source since there is no power cord
(and no power outlets in the cave). :)

There is a "Quick Start Guide" (QSG), only 10 pages, so that's what we'll use
here. (The complete manual is around 13,536 pages, similar to a typical
Congressional bill these days, neither of which anyone is expected to
read in its entirety, downloaded separately.)

The QSG says simply that one is supposed to walk into the "I"
door and close it behind you. A short (but unspecified) time later,
two people will exit from doors "O1" and "O2".
They will be identical to the original in every detail down to
beyond the level of cells, atoms, elementary particles, and even
quarks, and will also preserve any neural activity and energy fields
present at the time of the sampling (which is stated to be
essentially instantaneous). So, these are not clones but absolute
perfect duplicates with all the memories and abilities of the originals.
The QSG does not say whether one of them
IS the original or simply a perfect copy not subject to normal entropy increase
(with the original presumably having been recycled in some manner), but
does say that there is no known test that can be used to determine this.

So, in many ways, the WPR is similar to the Star Trek Transporter when
in one of its misbehaving modes. But, it is known for a fact, thankfully,
that the WPR was developed totally independently and uses none of its
23,613,723,658 lines of buggy source code. :)

Now, given that the WPR is in Demo mode (and includes a bin full of
Proxima Centuri Terra #4 business cards), there are a few restrictions:

There is a time limitation. This is programmed to be about 25.6534 hours
- the duration of Terry #4's day. After this time has expired, the
WPR will vanish along with one of the copies selected at random (if
they are both still present at that time).

Should any attempt be made to examine one of the copies via any
invasive technique, it will vanish instantly. So, for example, it
would not be possible to use one copy as a sacrificial specimen to
search for a disease like cancer by imaging using an industrial high
flux X-ray CT scanner, exploratory surgery, or dissection. More simply,
any damage beyond normal wear and tear to a copy will result in its
vanishing instantly.

Should any attempt be made to leave the immediate vicinity of the
WPR, one of the copies will vanish instantly.

Sending either of the copies back through the machine via the "I"
door will result in the other copy vanishing instantly (but then two
new copies will emerge subject to the 25.6534 hours limitation, above).

Thus, after 25.6534 hours, there is no machine and one person absolutely
identical to you (when you existed) but possibly with some very strange
memories.

So the question:

Does it matter which version of you is still present after
25.6534 hours? :)

Smart Phones on the Rise

(This is an expanded version of a letter of mine published in the Philadelphia
Inquirer.)

While heavily involved in other areas of high tech, I do not have a smart
phone and have little desire for one. I have a cell phone for - gasp -
making calls, what a concept. And mostly for emergencies. Nor as an
engineer would I want to go back to the dark ages before a Web search
requiring literally a wall of databooks to select parts for a design.
Nonetheless....

A hand-full of geniuses in Silicon Valley are creating technology to make
the vast majority of us stupider. And this isn't just about smart phones -
it applies to all sorts of high tech gadgets including the personal computer.
We are now dependent on extra-cranial
assistance for the following: basic math (imagine finding a square root or
even long division without a calculator App), spelling (try hippopotamus
or bureaucracy without spell check or Autospell), current weather conditions
(without an App), planning a road trip
(without Mapquest or Google Maps), navigating the road system (without
GPS), geography (without Google Earth) real research (without the use of any
silicon-based search engines), or eventually the ability to do any critical
thinking at all. If Google or IBM's Watson can provide a solution to any
question posed to it, and similar systems can now routinely beat grand masters
at chess and other sophisticated games, where does it leave homo-sapiens?

There were undoubtedly similar concerns with the introduction of fire,
the wheel, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, processed food, automobiles
that didn't require constant tinkering, and all sorts
of other products and services that are now taken for granted. However,
one major difference is that the capabilities that are
now being taken over by technology include some of those that were thought
for ages to be uniquely human.

It's ironic that so-called "expert systems" have or will soon be far more
proficient at tasks like medical diagnosis and treatment recommendations,
so that the holographic doctor of Star Trek may not be far behind. But menial
jobs like janitorial services may be the last to be replaced by machines.

But notwithstanding the wearable computer cyborg wanna-bees and Internet
connected toaster enthusiasts, there needs to be more consideration of
where all this is all leading. Is it ultimately improving the quality
of life? Providing more free time? Enhancing happiness? The more
mechanized computerized systems we own, the less we understand about them
and there is more that can go wrong in ways that only those geniuses
would be able to untangle. I only replace my PC when it becomes unreliable
enough to be annoying. That's usually several years and by then not only
has the technology changed dramatically, but I've forgotten a lot of the
details of putting a new system together to work in the environment I
expect.

How Murphy's Law Came About
(Forwarded by: Bob Parker (bobpar@ozemail.com.au).)

The Contributions of Edsel Murphy to the Understanding of the Behaviour
of Inanimate Objects
D.L. KLIPSTEIN

Abstract - Consideration is given to the effects of the contributions
of Edsel Murphy to the discipline of electronics engineering. His
law is stated in both general and special form. Examples are
presented to corroborate the author's thesis that the law is
universally applicable.

I. INTRODUCTION

IT HAS LONG BEEN the consideration of the author that the
contributions of Edsel Murphy, specifically his general and special
laws delineating the behavior of inanimate objects, have not been
fully appreciated. It is deemed that this is, in large part, due to
the inherent simplicity of the law itself.

It is the intent of the author to show, by references drawn from
the literature, that the law of Murphy has produced numerous
corollaries.

It is hoped that by noting these examples, the reader may obtain a
greater appreciation of Edsel Murphy, his law, and its ramifications
in engineering and science.

As is well known to those versed in the state-of-the-art, Murphy's
Law states that "If anything can go wrong, it will." Or, to state it
in more exact mathematical form:

1 + 1 = 2 (1)

where "=" is the mathematical symbol for hardly ever.

Some authorities have held that Murphy's Law was first expounded by
H. Cohen [1] when he stated that "If anything can go wrong, it will -
during the demonstration." However, Cohen has made it clear that
the broader scope of Murphy's general law obviously takes precedence.

To show the all-pervasive nature of Murphy's work, the author offers
a small sample of the application of the law in electronics
engineering.

II. GENERAL ENGINEERING

II.1. A patent application will be preceded by one week by a similar
application made by an independent worker.

II.2. The more innocuous a design change appears, the further its
influence will extend.

II.3. All warranty and guarantee clauses become void upon payment of
invoice.

II.4. The necessity of making a major design change increases as the
fabrication of the system approaches completion.

II.5. Firmness of delivery dates is inversely proportional to the
tightness of the schedule.

II.6. Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per
fortnight. [2]

II.7. An important Instruction Manual or Operating Manual will have
been discarded by the Receiving Department.

II.8. Suggestions made by the Value Analysis group will increase
costs and reduce capabilities.

II.9. Original drawings will be mangled by the copying machine. [3]

III. MATHEMATICS

III.1. In any given miscalculation, the fault will never be placed
if more than one person is involved.

III.2. Any error that can creep in, will. It will be in the
direction that will do the most damage to the calculation.

III.3. All constants are variables.

III.4. In any given computation, the figure that is most obviously
correct will be the source of error.

III.5. A decimal will always be misplaced.

III.6. In a complex calculation, one factor from the numerator will
always move into the denominator.

IV.22. A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the
fuse by blowing first. [14]

IV.23. A self-starting oscillator won't.

IV.24. A crystal oscillator will oscillate at the wrong frequency -
if it oscillates.

IV.25. A PNP transistor will be an NPN. [15]

IV.26. A zero-temperature-coefficient capacitor used in a critical
circuit will have a TC of -750 ppm/deg. C.

IV.27. A failure will not appear till a unit has passed Final
Inspection. [16]

IV.28. A purchased component or instrument will meet its specs long
enough, and only long enough, to pass Incoming
Inspection. [17]

IV.29. If an obviously defective component is replaced in an
instrument with an intermittent fault, the fault will reappear
after the instrument is returned to service. [18]

IV.30. After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from
an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access
cover has been removed. [19]

IV.31. After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down
screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been
omitted. [20]

IV.32. After an instrument has been fully assembled, extra
components will be found on the bench.

IV.33. Hermetic seals will leak.

V. SPECIFYING

V.1. Specified environmental conditions will always be exceeded.

V.2. Any safety factor set as a result of practical experience will
be exceeded.

V.3. Manufacturers' spec sheets will be incorrect by a factor of 0.5
or 2.0, depending on which multiplier gives the most optimistic
value. For salesmen's claims these factors will be 0.1 or 10.0.

V.4. In an instrument or device characterized by a number of plus-or-
minus errors, the total error will be the sum of all errors
adding in the same direction.

V.5. In any given price estimate, cost of equipment will exceed
estimate by a factor of 3. [21]

V.6. In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.

* In some cases where no reference is given, the source material was
misplaced during preparation of this paper (another example of
Murphy's Law). In accordance with the law, these misplaced documents
will turn up on the date of publication of this paper.

FINAL NOTE: The man who developed one of the most profound concepts of the
twentieth century is practically unknown to most engineers. He is a
victim of his own law. Destined for a secure place in the
engineering hall of fame, something went wrong.

His real contribution lay not merely in the discovery of the law but
more in its universality and in its impact. The law itself, though
inherently simple, has formed a foundation on which future
generations will build.

In fact, the law first came to him in all its simplicity when his
bride-to-be informed him of the impending birth of an heir to the
family fortunes.

(From: Laurence G. Dishman.)

Actually, there really was a Murphy. I don't remember his first name
but he was a Captain in the US Air Force. During the late 1950s the Air
Force was testing human endurance by shooting people down rails on a rocket
powered sled. Captain Murphy was responsible for the electronic sensors
that measured the forces that the body was subjected to.

Apparently, one poor electronics technician could never seem to assemble
strain transducers correctly and a very frustrated Murphy complained loudly
to the tech's NCO that "if it can possibly be wired wrong, he'll find a way
to do it!" Which was quickly corrupted to the more general case and
attributed to the Captain.

When the Air Force went public with the project after the test with [I'm
not certain of the rank but I believe it was] Lt Col Stapp in the sled.
One of the Public Relations Officers remarked to reporters that the program
was progressing in spite of Murphy's Law.